The “Grand Dame” of reality TV is about to spend a year behind bars for a DUI crash in Potomac, Maryland.
“Real Housewives of Potomac” star Karen Huger was sentenced to two years in jail with one year suspended on Wednesday. Once she’s released, she’s expected to be under probation for five years.
A Montgomery County jury found her guilty of driving under the influence and several other charges in December.
Huger crashed her white Maserati last spring, taking down multiple street signs in a Potomac neighborhood lined with cherry trees. Huger wasn’t injured.
Body camera video the state’s attorney’s office released after Huger’s conviction shows her slurring her words while talking to police officers in front of her damaged car.
Her husband, Ray Huger, came to the scene after the crash and the video shows him standing beside her while an officer asks her questions.
The officer is heard asking her, “Do you remember the accident?”
Karen Huger pauses for a while before answering, “Yes.”
“What happened?” the officer asks.
“Actually, nothing really,” Karen Huger says.
Ray Huger then says, “Yeah, somebody ran you off the road.”
“They did,” she says.
Then, when the officer asks her if she remembers the vehicle at all, she says, “No.”
The officer tries a few times to ask Karen Huger how much she had to drink, but she repeatedly doesn’t answer the question.
“I was out, but I’m good,” she tells the officer.
When he asks her again, she tells him to talk to her husband, who wasn’t there at the time of the crash.
“I can’t talk to your husband; he’s not really involved in this incident,” the officer says.
“No, he is. He is,” she responds.
At that point, Ray Huger is seen searching through his wife’s purse in an apparent effort to find her license.
“How much did you have to drink tonight?” the officer asks again.
Karen Huger looks at the officer with her head tilted to the side before turning to her husband and asking, “Ray, are you good?” as he searches through her purse.
“I’m good. I’m just saying they’re assuming you had more than you should have. And I’m assuming you had, like, a couple beers or something like that,” Ray Huger says.
“Yes, that’s all I had,” Karen Huger says.
The crash crushed the front of her Maserati on the driver’s side. Tire marks showed the path the car took off of the road and into a grassy area with cherry trees.
One photo provided by the state’s attorney’s office showed a bottle of Stella Artois beer inside Huger’s car.
Hugar was convicted of DUI, negligent driving, failure to control speed to avoid a collision and failure to notify of address change, the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office said. The jury cleared her of a reckless driving charge.
