Former Detroit Lions cornerback Alex Brown was allegedly so drunk that he thought he was in Atlanta returning from a strip club after he injured two people in a Sunday morning car crash while driving the wrong way on a local freeway, Wayne County prosecutors said in court Tuesday morning.
“He had a possible blood alcohol level from a PBT (portable breathalyzer) of .211 and there was signs of intoxication,” assistant Wayne County prosecutor Brian Johnson said in a Zoom hearing at 36th district court. “He thought he was in Atlanta, Georgia, (coming from) a strip club.”
Brown, who was waived by the Lions hours after the accident, stood mute to the four charges against him — two counts of operating while under the influence causing serious injury and two counts of reckless driving causing serious injury — but magistrate Dawn White entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.
Dressed in a white collared shirt, Brown appeared by video from the Detroit Detention Center while standing in front of a state of Michigan seal.
His attorney, Ray Paige, waived a formal reading of the charges, and Brown spoke only briefly and on a handful of occasions.
Brown entered his name for the record, and said, “Yes, ma’am,” to several of the judge’s orders, including that he be placed on an alcohol tether, surrender his passport and have an ignition interlock device placed on his car as conditions of his release.
Paige asked that Brown be allowed to use a handheld tether so as not to compromise any future workouts he may have with NFL teams.
White set Brown’s bond at $50,000, or 10% of that amount, though prosecutors asked for a bond in the $500,000 to $750,000 range.
“The court does feel that he presents a danger to the public and that the allegations are such that driving the wrong way on a freeway, that in itself leads this court to believe that he’s a danger to the public,” White said. “Based on the investigator’s report, there was alcohol involved, as an admission by Mr. Brown as well as from the PBT test. There were injuries from an accident.”
Brown was arrested around 2:13 a.m. Sunday after a crash on southbound I-75 near I-375 in Detroit, when he struck a 27-year-old Detroit man’s car head-on, causing injury to the man’s legs.
Former Lions tight end Charlie Taumoepeau, who was a passenger in Brown’s car, was removed from the vehicle with the jaws of life, placed on a backboard and in a cervical collar and transported to a local hospital.
Johnson said both Taumoepeau and the man driving the second car remain hospitalized.
Brown, who signed with the Lions in May and last appeared in an NFL game with the Kansas City Chiefs in 2019, is due in court for a cause hearing Aug. 26 and a preliminary exam Sept. 2.
Paige told the court he is “in the process of getting (Brown) outpatient treatment.”
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.