Chris Paciello, Former SoBe Kingpin, Beats DUI Charges

Ever notice how some of Miami's most connected, bold-faced names always somehow get their DUIs reduced to reckless driving charges? It was a recurring theme in our rundown of celeb mug shots.Well, controversial South Beach nightlife icon Chris Paciello is the latest to join the club. He's escaped DUI charges...

By Kyle Munzenrieder

August 13, 2012

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Ever notice how some of Miami's most connected, bold-faced names always somehow get their DUIs reduced to reckless driving charges? It was a recurring theme in our rundown of celeb mug shots.

Well, controversial South Beach nightlife icon Chris Paciello is the latest to join the club. He's escaped DUI charges and been hit with reckless driving instead.

Paciello got popped last February in Miami Beach for DUI, but his attorney Michael Grieco tells Random Pixels he's beaten the charges:

I provided the State Attorney with video [embedded below] of my client during booking inside the police station showing his sobriety. I also provided them with x-rays of his lower extremities showing evidence of surgical implants, making his performance (or lack thereof) on the roadside exercises questionable.

Paciello is quite the colorful South Beach legend. He opened a nightclub here in 1994 with money from a bank robbery committed with a Mafia-connected gang he ran with in Long Island. He then went on to open Club Liquid, a celeb hot spot, and reportedly romanced Madonna.

By 1999, his criminal past caught up with him, and he was arrested on charges of robbery and murder, but got off with only ten years because he had been informing the FBI.

He was released in 2006 and recently returned to the South Beach scene with the opening of FDR Lounge at the Delano.

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