In the span of just over a year, a Cody man racked up three arrests for drunk driving and two more for driving with a suspended license. But now Chad J.B. Hotler is working on a new streak, having built up over eight months of sobriety.

“… being sober now, seeing the person that I was, it’s a wake up call,” Hotler said at a Park County District Court hearing last week. “It literally shocks you.”

Hotler was there to plead guilty to a felony DUI charge and two misdemeanor driving offenses. The charges stemmed from a March incident in which Hotler drunkenly drove a semi-truck loaded with hay bales between Powell and Cody; it was at least his fourth DUI in five years and, at the time, authorities had been seeking to arrest him on two earlier drunk driving allegations.

Under the terms of a deal offered by the Park County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, Hotler is set to serve a month in jail and three years of supervised probation while a couple other misdemeanor charges will be dropped.

The agreement isn’t final, as sentencing will be held at a later date. However, District Court Judge Bill Simpson told Hotler that he intends to accept the arrangement.

“Obviously you have a significant alcohol problem — I would say a horrendous alcohol problem — to get you into this kind of trouble,” Simpson said at the Nov. 21 hearing, stressing that Hotler can’t have a single drink going forward.

“If you can’t do that, and you feel you don’t have the inner strength to do it, you need to tell me right now, because that will save us all a lot of heartache,” Simpson said.

“I’m 100% that I can do that, your honor,” Hotler said.

He said the time away from alcohol has showed him the importance of his family — Hotler almost lost them amid his struggles, he said — and said his inability to drive has limited his business and work.

“I don’t have the words, but … it’s amazing how you wake up one day and you think everything’s right and now, looking back on all of that, it was wrong,” Hotler said.

Multiple DUIs

Hotler was convicted of DUIs in June 2020 and April 2021 in Montana, then had two more DUI arrests last year in the Powell-Cody area.

One of last year’s cases was eventually dropped by Park County prosecutors, while Hotler pleaded guilty to the other. As Hotler’s third DUI conviction, it should have resulted in at least a 30-day sentence, but in an oversight, he received just seven days. Before he completed that time, however, he was caught driving again without a license in December 2023.

Hotler was then arrested again for driving the semi-truck while impaired in March on U.S. Highway 14A. His blood alcohol content was 0.091% — above the 0.08% level where a person is presumed to be impaired. Days later, Cody police arrested him again — his fifth arrest in Park County in just over a year — for driving without a license.

At that point in late March, Hotler had so many pending cases that the parties struggled to keep track of them all in court.

A change in direction

However, since making bail once more, Hotler has stayed out of trouble. He reported last week that he’d been completely sober since his March DUI arrest — eight months and six days. That account is backed up by a monitoring device that periodically tests his breath.

Assuming the plea deal is approved, Hotler will be required to keep using that device during his three years of supervised probation. He must also follow conditions like obeying the law and staying away from bars.

Three to five years of prison time are being suspended under the proposed deal. If there are any probation violations, Simpson warned that he’ll “probably be compelled” to send Hotler to the state penitentiary.

However, the judge also remarked that Hotler appears to be on the right track.

“The only way you really get sober is when you stop thinking about yourself and you start thinking about others, and you start thinking about the pain you’ve caused other people,” the judge said, to agreement from Hotler, “and you’ve done that.”