by David P. Greisman

Antonio Escalante needs to get help before he hurts himself or someone else. The former junior featherweight and featherweight was arrested last week for allegedly driving drunk, according to television station KVIA, which covers El Paso, Texas.

This was his fourth drunk driving arrest of 2014.

“Officers found Escalanate [at a gas station] in the driver’s seat unconscious with an open bottle of Michelob AmberBock, several empty beer bottles on the passenger seat and several more on the floorboard, according to the affidavit,” the article said. “Police say Escalante had very slurred speech and detected a very strong odor of alcohol from his breath. Police also said he appeared to have urinated on himself, had red, glassy, bloodshot eyes and had trouble standing, according to the affidavit.”

This comes just weeks after he’d pleaded guilty in two of those cases. That plea ended with him being sentenced to one year in jail, though that sentence was suspended while he serves 18 months of probation and completes 100 hours of community service. Online court records now show a motion to revoke the plea agreement. Given this most recent arrest, Escalante very well could end up behind bars on those older charges while also facing court dates on the two open cases.

One of the open cases is scheduled to go to trial in May 2015. Escalante is accused of “driving while intoxicated with a child under 15 years of age,” according to online court records. He also was cited in May for allegedly having a child not secured by a safety seat.

Online court records list similar accusations over the years: an unrestrained child in 2004, driving under the influence in 2006, driving without a valid license on multiple occasions in 2009 and 2010. Some of these cases wound up dismissed. He’s also had alleged license/license plate violations this year as well.

Escalante, who is 29 years old, turned pro in 2003. Among his notable wins are victories over Cornelius Lock, Mike Oliver, Miguel Roman and Gary Stark Jr.

His losses came to Jairo Sanchez early in his career, to Mauricio Pastrana in 2007, in back-to-back knockout losses to Daniel Ponce De Leon in 2010 and Alejandro Perez, in back-to-back stoppage losses to Rocky Juarez in 2012 and Robert Marroquin in 2013 — and, most recently, a third-round technical knockout loss to Miguel Berchelt on Oct. 11. That dropped him to 29-7 with 20 KOs.   

Pick up a copy of David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazonor internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide. Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com