Real Housewives of Potomac star Karen Huger was taken into custody to serve one year in prison for her fourth DUI conviction on February 26. Huger, wearing a black jacket with her blonde hair down by her face, made a last-minute appeal to avoid jail time, but Montgomery County Circuit Judge Terrence McGann wasn’t having it. “Karen Huger is no stranger to driving drunk on our public roads,” McGann said. “One would have thought that Ms. Huger would have learned her lesson in 2007,” but before the “ink had even dried” on that DUI arrest, she was arrested again. (After the three previous arrests, Huger served no jail time.) “Karen Huger certainly had the hang of working the system and all prior warning had gone in one ear and out the other,” McGann continued. “Can we believe she has only driven while intoxicated four times in the last 17 years?”
“What’s the guarantee she is done driving while drunk?” McGann said. “Unfortunately, there is no guarantee.”
Huger is sentenced to two years in prison with one year suspended, five years of supervised probation, and a fine of $2,900. Upon release from prison, the judge said she was prohibited from driving for one year, and for the duration of her probation, she must drive with an ignition interlock driving device installed. The hearing occurred in Montgomery County Circuit Court before a packed courtroom. Deputies were kind enough to bring out more chairs so individuals standing in the back could sit down in the aisles. Huger’s husband, Raymond, whom she called to the scene on the night of her DUI arrest, and her children Rayvin and Brandon came to court to support her.
Before the sentence was announced, Huger asked the judge for leniency. “I needed to take a hard look at myself,” the grande dame said. “There was a sense of entitlement that I could keep on consuming alcohol: I have been successful. Why should I give up this indulgence?” Huger added she was thankful that she only hit a tree: “Thank God I didn’t hit a person.”
Huger had originally pleaded not guilty after being pulled over March 19, 2024, but was found guilty by a jury in December. At the sentencing, she took a moment to apologize to the officers who pulled her over for how she treated them in viral body-cam footage of her arrest.
“The body cameras definitely proves [sic] that they were right and I was wrong,” Huger said.
The reality star said attending Alcoholics Anonymous would be a part of her life for the rest of her life, insisting, “Your honor, I will not let you down.” But Judge McGann was not moved. Ahead of laying down his sentence, he pointed out that Huger refused to perform a field sobriety test or take Breathalyzer tests, and that she “consumed so much alcohol that she drove at an exorbitant speed as she entered a sleepy Potomac neighborhood.” The impact of the crash was so severe that it crumpled the front of her 2017 Maserati, he continued, saying Huger was “in a drunken stupor,” her voice was slurred, and that she “babbled incessantly as she was driven to and at the police station.” McGann emphasized that Huger seemed to have learned no lessons for her prior DUI-related convictions in 2006, 2008, and 2010.
“She certainly has a record,” Huger’s attorney David Martella said. “This is not a garden-variety first offense.”
Before sentencing, Martella tried to argue to the judge that Huger was taking this conviction seriously and had been to treatment to address her issues with alcohol and prescription medicine, namely her antidepressants, and depression due to being a rape victim when she was a student at the University of Virginia. He said she went to the BeachSide Recovery Center in Palm Beach for 31 days, where she went through withdrawal. He said she has also been participating in AA and has completed a weekend Right Turn recovery program. He asked the judge to sentence her to home confinement and offered that she would remain alcohol free even at home.
Huger’s husband, Ray, the “Black Bill Gates,” said his wife had been sober since the accident and arrest. “I would ask the judge for leniency,” Ray said. However, the prosecutor, Jordan Kramer, said that Huger needed a more severe punishment for her fourth offense. “This is a pattern,” Kramer asserted. “This is not Ms. Huger’s second chance, this is Ms. Huger’s fourth. By the time you get to your fourth DUI offense, there does need to be some level of punishment.”
After the sentencing, Martella told the press that “Ms. Huger said she is at peace with this. She is happy that this part of the process is over and that she feels healthier than she has in years.”
Martella would not say if he plans to appeal the conviction.
Correction: An earlier version of this story referred to Huger’s 2017 Maserati as a Mazda.