Ex-Minnesota Viking Everson Griffen given 60-day sentence, probation for drunken driving

Former Minnesota Viking Everson Griffen has been sentenced to a 60-day term for driving while drunk in May on a Minneapolis interstate.

Ahead of his sentence Wednesday in Hennepin County District Court, the 36-year-old Griffen pleaded guilty to third-degree drunken driving in connection with the State Patrol stopping him on May 28 on southbound Interstate 35W near Lake Street. Dismissed were charges of fifth-degree drug possession and careless driving.

Judge Gina Brandt set aside a year in the workhouse for Griffen and put him on supervisory probation for four years. Conditions of his probation include that he abstain from alcohol and illicit drugs.

Griffen will serve his time on electronic home monitoring with the possibility of work release. While on probation, he can pursue employment, go to treatment, receive medical care and volunteer coach. He begins serving his sentence Tuesday.

According to the charges, a state trooper saw a Bentley Bentayga pass by “at a visually high rate of speed.” The trooper obtained a reading of 82 miles per hour in a 55 mph zone.

The trooper pulled over the car and saw Griffen driving with a passenger. He said he was heading to Mystic Lake Casino in Prior Lake. During the conversation, the trooper detected an odor of alcohol inside the car and noticed that Griffen’s eyes were watery. He told the trooper he had one drink at about 1 p.m.

The trooper gave Griffen a preliminary breath test, which measured his blood alcohol content at 0.10%, above the legal limit for driving in Minnesota.

A search by the trooper turned up a small plastic vial in a Griffen’s pants pocket that tested positive for cocaine.

This was the second time in about the past 17 months that Griffen has been arrested on suspicion of drunken driving. In July 2023, he was stopped in Chanhassen and accused of driving 60 mph in a 40 mph zone. His blood-alcohol content was 0.09%. Griffen pleaded guilty to a reduced careless driving charge in February and was placed on a year’s probation.

In the months following that allegation, Griffen crashed his car into a fence and gazebo in Mound on Oct. 28, 2023. He was cited and convicted of failure to drive with due care, a petty misdemeanor. On Dec. 7, 2023, in Shakopee, police stopped Griffen for driving 55 mph in a 30 mph zone. He was convicted of a petty misdemeanor in that case as well.

In December 2021, following multiple troubling incidents, Griffen announced on social media that he had been living with bipolar disorder.

Griffen called 911 shortly after 3 a.m. from his Minnetrista home on Nov. 24, 2021, saying someone was with him, and he needed help. He also told the dispatcher he fired one round from a gun, but no one was wounded, police said. They added no intruder was found.

The same day, Griffen had posted, then deleted, a video on Instagram saying people were trying to kill him as he held a gun in his hand. He was alone inside the house, with police outside, until he emerged and agreed to be taken for treatment.

Griffen also spent four weeks undergoing mental health treatment in 2018 after two incidents that September — one at the Hotel Ivy in downtown Minneapolis, the other at his home — that prompted police involvement. He later revealed he lived in a sober house for the remainder of the 2018 season.

He returned to the Vikings in 2019 and played in 17 of the Vikings’ 18 regular-season and postseason games. He spent 2020 with Dallas and Detroit before the Vikings brought him back for the 2021 season in a one-year deal that capped his career.