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Former CMU prof faces another drunken driving charge
Friday, November 27, 2009

Jeffrey Hunker, a former Carnegie Mellon University professor charged with drunken driving three times in eight days last year, has been charged with drunken driving again after police said he hit a car in Shadyside last night and then briefly pulled away when an officer approached his car.

City officers from Zone 4 charged him shortly after 7 p.m. about a mile from his apartment on Shady Avenue in Shadyside.

Police said they initially were called for a hit-and-run at Shady and Walnut Street. When an officer arrived, he saw a damaged grey BMW driving down Walnut. The officer said he saw the car drive through a red light at South Negley Avenue, where he said it nearly hit another car.

The officer activated his lights to pull the car over and Mr. Hunker stopped. But as the officer exited his car to approach, he said Mr. Hunker drove away before pulling into a parking lot at Walnut and South Aiken.

Police couldn't find anyone to drive him home, so they took him to jail.

It wasn't clear this morning if he was still there. He didn't return a message left at his home.

Mr. Hunker, 52, once President Clinton's chief of cyber-security, was living on Squirrel Hill Avenue last year when police arrested him three times in August on drunken driving charges. In one instance, neighbors said he backed out of his driveway, drove through a neighbor's yard, knocked over a tree, hit a car and smashed into a house.

He checked into an alcohol-treatment center in Virginia after the incidents and avoided jail pending trial. Those charges still are awaiting trial.

The district attorney's office said Mr. Hunker has been in rehab at least twice before in Pennsylvania and Oregon, and he has a previous DUI from a 2004 crash that he had expunged from his record.

When he was charged in the initial incidents, Mr. Hunker had been an adjunct professor of technology and policy at the H. John Heinz III School of Public Policy and Management. He is no longer affiliated with CMU.

Torsten Ove can be reached at tove@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1510.
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First published on November 27, 2009 at 11:25 am
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