Dickey Betts was arrested Sunday night after allegedly attacking his wife in their Florida home. The fifty-six-year-old guitarist was charged with a misdemeanor count of domestic battery and released Monday on $10,000 bail.
According to a Sarasota County sheriff's report, an intoxicated Betts grabbed his wife Donna by the hair on Sunday night and forced her to the floor of their home where he slapped her while screaming obscenities at her. After being restrained by his son, Forrest, Betts apparently attacked his wife again, punching her in the face. A sheriff's deputy claims that he saw blood around Donna Betts' mouth, but she did not require medical attention.
For Betts, the altercation is the latest in a string of incidents that have plagued him this year. In June, the guitarist was ousted via fax from the Allman Brothers Band, which he co-founded and played in for three decades, on the eve of the band's summer tour. Later that month Betts was admitted to a mental hospital for observation after a domestic dispute with his wife. "I was so depressed that my wife was worried about the whole thing," Betts told RollingStone.com in June. "I'd sit there and tears run out of my eyes and then we started venting to one another about it, because there was no one else around. We got into a domestic thing and she called a friend of ours who's a police officer. I was admitted to a hospital for mental evaluation and care. The doctors released me the next day and told me to take it easy."
Betts rallied following the incident, putting together a new eight-piece band, with which he toured as the Dickey Betts Band. Though there is no word from the state attorney's office about how the case will proceed, Betts' attorney Michael Mosca told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that the latest incident was "a misunderstanding" that had been "blown out of proportion."
Betts had a previous arrest stemming from a domestic violence incident in 1996 when he allegedly placed a .44 Magnum to his wife's head and threatened her life. The charges were dropped when he agreed to enter a drug rehabilitation center in 1997.
ANDREW DANSBY
(October 25, 2000)
