Drunk with Power

With his long white beard, ponytail and ubiquitous advertising, a former police officer who is now an attorney, James Morris Balagia of Manor, Texas, is also known as the ‘D.W.I. Dude’. He is well-known in Texas as a flamboyant defense lawyer who can get ‘drunk driving’ defendants out of a jam. His advertising slogan was, ‘Busted? Call the Dude!’. However, he pocketed money that he told drug dealers would be used to bribe officials, prosecutors said. In the end, when Jamie Balagia, now age 65, got convicted for his crimes in May 2021, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison.