Carbone Free, Calls DWI Charge 'Speeding Ticket'

Felony drunk driving defendant Joseph Carbone is out of jail and confident that he will be absolved of the most serious charges against him.

After being held since June 9, Carbone made bail Tuesday night. Wednesday morning he appeared before Judge William O'Brien, trading an orange jumpsuit for a blue dress shirt and tan slacks. The judge set a new court date for July 23 to give Carbone time to find an attorney.

When Syosset Patch approached Carbone outside court after the hearing, he said he had been advised not to talk to the media until he found representation. But in refusing to speak he also questioned the seriousness of the charges.

"Leave it alone," Carbone said with a smile on his face. "It's a speeding ticket."

Actually, the 49-year-old Carbone, of 21 Coventry Rd., faces up to seven years in prison on his current drunk driving charge after an earlier conviction in both Nassau and Suffolk counties. He made headlines by reportedly bragging that he was doing 130 in his Maserati on the Long Island Expressway when the officer that stopped him told him he was doing 110.

"You should be writing about a president who can't shut off a pipe in the ocean," Carbone quipped before walking away. He went outside, where an elderly woman drove him away in a late-model Mercury.