As soon as today, Vikings receiver Michael Floyd will find out whether he’ll be sent back to jail and/or otherwise punished for testing positive for alcohol while on house arrest due to, Floyd claims, drinking apparently copious amounts of kombucha tea.
The court hearing, scheduled for Monday in Arizona, has been enhanced by the Vikings’ decision to send a letter supporting Floyd’s belief that kombucha tea doesn’t contain alcohol. It’s not all that implausible to think Floyd truly wasn’t aware that the beverage contains a certain amount of booze, given that he was subject to periodic, unannounced dates with an in-home breath-testing machine.
Arizona doesn’t screw around with DUI offenses; Floyd admitted to extreme DUI, which included a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.217 percent, well above the legal limit of 0.08 percent.
Many jurisdictions view house arrest as a privilege. For Floyd, that privilege was extended to a decision to let him complete the sentence in Minnesota, so that he could attend offseason workouts with the Vikings.
Much of the outcome will depend on the judge’s attitude toward deviations from the terms of house arrest in DUI cases, along with an assessment of whether Floyd is telling the truth. The magnitude of his BAC -- 0.055 percent -- will make it easier for the judge to conclude that Floyd was simply rolling the dice and hoping he wouldn’t be tested, perhaps with the kombucha tea defense tucked into his back pocket.
Regardless, an answer as to whether Floyd will get a pass or a trip back to prison could come by the time Tuesday arrives.