Winthrop man convicted of OUI - for eighth time

Prosecutors plan to seek prison time for a Winthrop man found guilty today of driving drunk and then attempting to use the bench he was chained to at a State Police barracks as a weapon against arresting officers.

Joseph Limone, 61, will be sentenced Feb. 21 following today's conviction by a jury in Suffolk Superior Court, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports.

"From what we've seen, nothing short of incarceration is going to keep this defendant off the road," District Attorney Dan Conley said in a statement. "We'll be seeking prison time."

Limone's latest adventure in impaired driving came late on the afternoon of July 12, 2011 along Revere Beach, where a trooper noticed a crazy driver:

Limone was sounding the horn of his 1988 Lincoln Town Car repeatedly, swerving, driving very closely behind another vehicle, and yelling, apparently at its driver. He then pulled his Town Car alongside that vehicle while continuing to yell. The trooper activated his lights and siren, prompting Limone to pull away from that car, travel north a short distance, and drive the wrong way down Beach Street, a one-way street.

Limone, whose right to drive had already been permanently revoked by the Registry, was eventually nabbed. He failed all of his field sobriety tests, threatened to "fuck up" the trooper, kicked out a window in the cruiser in which he was placed and had to be pepper-sprayed several times on the way from the cruiser to the State Police barracks:

Once inside, he tried to swing a bench at the troopers, only to find that it was secured to the wall by a cable. At that point, he tried to pull the cable from the wall. Troopers again discharged their chemical spray to subdue him, then notified medical personnel, who treated him for minor, self-inflicted injuries to his hands and feet.

Limone's OUI record dates to 1983 and includes convictions in Suffolk, Essex and Middlesex counties. While he was awaiting trial on the Revere charges, he had his seventh OUI conviction overturned by the Massachusetts Appeals Court but then reinstated by the Supreme Judicial Court. In that case, he rammed an off-duty Somerville police officers's personal car in Woburn. At issue was whether the cop, on his way home from work, had the right to detain Limone until Woburn Police arrived - the state's highest court ruled he did, because he was acting like any private citizen could, not as a cop.