Retired Judge Faces 5 Charges From Drunk-Driving Arrest

Five misdemeanor charges were filed Monday against a retired San Fernando municipal judge arrested last month on suspicion of drunk driving after a California Highway Patrol officer stopped her, allegedly as she was driving the wrong way on Interstate 5 near Pyramid Lake.

Leila F. Bulgrin, 60, who had been with the Los Angeles Judicial District for 23 years when she retired in 1983, will be arraigned July 26 in Newhall Municipal Court on two counts of drunk driving, one count of driving the wrong way on a freeway, one count of resisting arrest and one count of having an open container of alcohol in her vehicle, Deputy Dist. Atty. Lewis Watnick said.

Tests indicated Bulgrin’s blood-alcohol level was 0.18% at the time of her arrest the night of June 26, Watnick said. Under state law, a person is legally drunk if alcohol in the bloodstream measures 0.10%. Watnick said officers found an open bottle of vodka in Bulgrin’s car.

Bulgrin, a Tujunga resident, suffered a broken wrist during her arrest when she tried to break free from a “bent-wrist hold,” CHP Officer Calma Smith said. Bulgrin, who still occasionally hears cases, was first spotted driving north between 40 m.p.h. and 50 m.p.h. in the southbound fast lane of the freeway about 1 1/2 miles south of Templin Highway between Gorman and Castaic, Smith said. At least one driver had to swerve to avoid colliding head-on with her car, the CHP spokesman said.

The officer stopped Bulgrin at Cherry Canyon Road, about seven miles north of where her car was first spotted, Smith said. He said Bulgrin was arrested after she needed assistance to get out of her car and denied driving the wrong way on the freeway.

Bulgrin was appointed to the bench in 1960 by former Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown after 13 years as a trial lawyer with the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles. Department of Motor Vehicles records list no previous arrests or traffic citations for Bulgrin.