For Kim Delaney, Jan. 28 could have been just another Monday at work on the Culver City, Calif., set of Philly, the ABC series in which she stars as defense attorney Kathleen Maguire. "She was fine," says one observer. "She always treats people nicely, and she was no different than she usually is."
Two days earlier, however, Delaney found herself in her own legal jam after being arrested for suspected driving under the influence. According to the Malibu Sheriff's Station, Delaney, 40, was driving north on the scenic Pacific Coast Highway to her two-bedroom Malibu beach house at 7:45 p.m., when an unidentified motorist called police on his cell phone to report a black Mercedes-Benz sedan allegedly weaving on the road, barely missing oncoming cars. "Oh no, she almost crashed," the caller told the sheriff's dispatcher at one point, police say. "You've got to hurry."
The motorist, who did not recognize the actress, reportedly followed Delaney up the highway for five miles and then to her house. Two minutes later cops arrived, just as another call came in. "It was the alarm company," says Sgt. Mo Angel. "Whoever entered didn't know how to turn off the alarm." Police found Delaney sitting on the steps just inside the entrance to her home; the front door was ajar with the keys still in the lock. "She kept asking what we were doing there," says Angel. "She was obviously intoxicated and confused—you could smell alcohol on her breath." After refusing to take a breath test and blood alcohol test, Delaney was booked on suspicion of driving under the influence. She was released at 1 a.m. Sunday after her fiancé, TV producer Alan Barnette, 54, picked her up. The couple, who became engaged in 1997 but have yet to set a wedding date, share a four-bedroom Beverly Hills house with Cameron, 12, Barnette's son from a previous marriage, and Jack, 11, Delaney's son by her second husband, actor Joe Cortese.
Delaney, who faces a March 27 court date, declined comment. Last April, however, excited about moving from NYPD Blue (where she'd won a 1997 Emmy as alcoholic cop Diane Russell) to Philly, she told PEOPLE, "I am aware of how fortunate I am. I still wait to have somebody say, 'No, that's not your life.' "
Galina Espinoza
Maureen Harrington, Michael Fleeman, Vicki Sheff-Cahan and Rachel Biermann in Los Angeles
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