PITTSBURGH -- An Indiana Township man pleaded guilty to his seventh and eighth drunk-driving convictions in Allegheny County court Tuesday. Michael H. Butela, 44, told Judge Lawrence O'Toole that he had learned his lesson and now gets a lift from his girlfriend or rides a bicycle instead of driving. "Don't even start with 'I've learned my lesson!" O'Toole yelled back. "You didn't learn your lesson the first six times?" O'Toole sentenced Butela to 180 days of house arrest, plus more than $2,000 in fines for his guilty plea on two counts of driving under the influence of alcohol, a charge of being an habitual drunk-driving offender, charges of counterfeiting vehicle registration and inspection stickers, and minor traffic offenses. Before being arrested twice in May 2003 for drunken driving in Indiana and Richland townships, Butela had six other DUI convictions, stretching back to 1987. His driver's license was suspended because of these charges, and he did not have registration or inspection stickers for the Toyota Celica he was illegally driving. So Butela admitted to police that he used his girlfriend's legitimate registration and inspection stickers, along with a computer program he created, to scan and counterfeit new stickers for himself. Butela told Judge O'Toole that he counterfeited the stickers because he was having a rough year. "Why don't you be a grown up and admit that you did it because you thought you could get away with it?" O'Toole demanded. The judge also asked if Butela used his computer skills to counterfeit stickers for anyone else. Butela said he did not. Along with O'Toole's sentence Tuesday, Butela spent almost a year in jail because of the drunk-driving charges. Because Butela was on probation in Westmoreland County for an insurance fraud conviction when he was arrested in May 2003, those new charges constituted a probation violation that landed him in jail in that county until April of this year, Butela's lawyer told the judge.

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