DETROIT, MICHIGAN – Detroit Lions assistant coach Joe Cullen, who police say drove nude through Dearborn last year, startling the heck out of workers at a Wendy’s drive-through window, pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct in a plea bargain today.
Detroit Lions Assistant Coach Joe Cullen, right, with his attorney, Joe Lavigne, of Farmington, are shown in this file photo from Nov. 14, 2006, during a hearing before Judge William Hultgren in 19th district Court, in Dearborn. Courtesy Detroit Free Press.
Cullen also had been charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated in a separate incident, but he was allowed to plead guilty to a reduced charge of impaired driving.
Both of the charges are misdemeanors. When Cullen is sentenced on Feb. 13, he faces up to 90 days in jail and a $500 fine plus court costs for disorderly person/obscene conduct. He also faces up to 93 days in jail and a $300 fine plus court costs for the impaired driving charge.
“He’s stepped up. He’s accepted responsibility,” his lawyer, Joseph A. Lavigne, said after leaving the courtroom in 19th District Court.
Dearborn police arrested the defensive line coach twice in about one week before the start of the 2006 season.
In the first incident on Aug. 24, Jethro Lett, a shift manager at Wendy’s restaurant on Michigan Avenue near Telegraph Road, told police that a nude man wheeled through the drive-up window and ordered food.
In an interview with the Free Press last September, Lett said he was working the second pickup window when an employee at the first window told him, “A guy coming to your window is naked.”
A short while later, police pulled over Conner’s blue Ford Explorer on Michigan Avenue and discovered he was naked.
The Lions attributed the incident to alcohol, but a Dearborn police report made no mention of alcohol.
A week later, on Sept. 1, police responded to a report of a driver speeding on Michigan Avenue with no lights on. They pulled over Cullen, who said he had consumed four beers, reports show. His blood-alcohol level was 0.12%, police said, above the state threshold of 0.08%.
Lavigne said Cullen had gone through an outpatient treatment program and has had “extremely favorable reports.” He described the program as comparable to Alcoholics Anonymous but more intensive.
The Lions suspended Cullen for the first game against the Seattle Seahawks. The National Football League later suspended him for the Dec. 24 game against Chicago and fined him $20,000 for “conduct detrimental to the league.”
Cullen, dressed in a dark blue suit Thursday, declined to talk about the charges or his plea bargain. In court, he acknowledged he had been drinking Sept. 1.
Dearborn District Judge William Hultgren told him it was likely the Secretary of State’s office would suspend his license for 90 days, allowing him to drive with restrictions.
Courtesy Detroit Free Press
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