A bottle of Fireball was a clue, prosecutors said. It wasn’t the driver’s first DUI.

A bottle of Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey in the vehicle was a clue when police pulled over a careless driver.

Gulfport police had lost sight of the driver after seeing him pull in front of a vehicle at Courthouse and Pass roads, Assistant District Attorney Mitch Owen said.

Police soon received a complaint of a careless driver on 31st Street, just south of that area, and patrol officers found Brad Lee Heflin parking his vehicle at his house and getting out, Owen said.

Officers reported they smelled whiskey and Heflin was unsteady on his feet. And that’s when they saw a bottle of Fireball on the passenger seat.

Police arrested him on a DUI the night of Nov. 4, 2016, and got a warrant for a blood-alcohol content test.

The results showed Heflin’s BAC level was 0.22 percent, nearly three times the state’s limit of 0.08, Owen said.

Police and would later learn through a search of court records that it was his fifth DUI.

The month before his arrest, the state Legislature passed a law that makes it a felony to have four or more DUI convictions regardless of when they occurred. The state already had a law that makes a third DUI a felony for anyone with two prior convictions within the previous five years.

Two months before his arrest, Heflin served 16 days in the county jail for leaving the scene of an accident that occurred in May 2016, the Harrison County jail docket shows.

By December 2016, Heflin went into the Home of Grace, a faith-based addiction recovery program in Vancleave, after a probation violation, according to a docket entry. He had three felony convictions — felony DUI and two burglaries, one of them involving a home.

Heflin, now 40, pleaded guilty to his fifth DUI on Monday in Harrison County Circuit Court, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

Judge Christopher Schmidt sentenced him to six years in prison, to serve day for day. Heflin faced two to 10 years in prison.

This story was originally published August 15, 2018 at 6:14 AM.