Joseph Robert Vigil is a hard-core drunken driver.

Laws that allowed the state to revoke his driver's license and send him to prison as a habitual offender didn't prevent the 48-year-old Santa Fe man from getting arrested again Sunday on a DWI charge.

Depending on which records you look at, Sunday's arrest could be the 14th time since 1991 that he's been nabbed, said Thomas Beretich, analyst for the DWI Resource Center in Albuquerque. And Beretich said records indicate that when Vigil drives drunk, he's really drunk.

Vigil's breath-alcohol content during his first DWI arrest, in 1991, was measured at .34 — nearly four times the legal limit. He blew a .33 in 2001 and a .35 in 2006, said Beretich, who obtained the figures from the center's database.

Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano said Monday that preliminary tests of Vigil's blood-alcohol level after a deputy picked him up Sunday indicate it was about four times the limit. "He fits the profile of many repeat offenders in the eight- to 12-DWI range," the sheriff said.

A sheriff's deputy found Vigil's 2000 Kia by the side of U.S. 84/285 just before 7 p.m. Sunday after dispatchers got a 911 call saying the car was seen weaving on the highway, according to a police report. When the deputy approached the car, he noticed Vigil smelled of alcohol, had an open pint bottle of Lord Calvert Canadian Whiskey on the passenger seat and his pants were unzipped, the report says.

Vigil refused to get out of the car and had to be physically removed, according to the deputy. Vigil was too drunk to take field sobriety tests and later tried to head-butt a deputy at St. Vincent Regional Medical Center, the report states. Deputies found another quarter-full bottle of whiskey in his car and two unopened pint bottles of whiskey, the report says.

Vigil had been driving with a revoked or suspended license, according to the police report, which said officers found eight prior DWIs on his record. Online court records, however, show Vigil has been arrested for DWI nine previous times since 1991. State Motor Vehicle Division records, meanwhile, show Vigil has been convicted of DWI seven times and his license has been suspended or revoked 18 times.

DWI Resource Center records indicate Vigil has been found guilty of DWI seven times since 1991 and show four other DWI cases against him were dismissed, Beretich said. Vigil has been arrested three times at the scenes of accidents, including the 2006 case, he said. Information on whether anyone was injured in those crashes was not available, Beretich said.

In December 2006, Vigil was sentenced to three years of incarceration, given credit for two years spent behind bars and sent to prison, according to court records. He was paroled in May, records say.

Vigil is charged with felony DWI, driving with a suspended or revoked license, having an open container of alcohol in his car, having no registration, having no insurance, assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest. He was ordered held in lieu of a $50,000 cash-only bond.

Contact Jason Auslander at 986-3076 or :jauslander@sfnewmexican.com.