Alcoholism is just a small part of the personality of hotelier Gregg Murphy.

That was the message Murphy's lawyer delivered during a 45-minute argument Wednesday at Murphy's sentencing hearing for felony drunken driving.

A courtroom audience of 35 friends, family members and other supporters looked on while attorney Matt Sandy extolled Murphy's contributions to the community as a father, husband, employer, successful businessman and philanthropist.

But Judge Michael Morrissey declined Sandy's plea to enter Murphy's conviction as a misdemeanor and spare him jail time. He sentenced Murphy to six months in jail, a year on house arrest and 18 months on probation.

After being arrested on drunken driving charges four times since 1996, Sandy said Murphy has completed inpatient treatment, outpatient treatment and follow-up, gone through a 12-step rehabilitation program and has been sober the past 21/2 years.

Sending him to jail, Sandy argued, would send the wrong message to other substance abusers striving to go straight.

"That would be telling him there's no undoing the harm you've done. I think that's the wrong message to send to an alcoholic," Sandy said. "I think it's the wrong message to send to his support network. I think it's the wrong message to send to this community."

That support network includes prominent businessmen, politicians, Purdue University professors and administrators, many of whom submitted letters to the court.

Among them were former county commissioner Nola Gentry, former state Rep. Sue Scholer, former Lafayette city clerk Lisa Decker, Trinity Mission director Dan Taylor, restaurateur Brad Cohen and Murphy's business partner Ron Reader.

Murphy, 43, co-owner of Holiday Inn Select and University Inn, let his friends' letters and Sandy do most of the talking at his sentencing hearing. But he rose briefly to apologize to the court, his family, his coworkers and the community for his "selfish and dangerous behavior."

Three of Murphy's four Tippecanoe County OWI arrests have resulted in convictions.

Deputy prosecutor Greg Loyd argued for the maximum three-year sentence, noting Murphy's level of intoxication at the time the of his most recent arrest.

Murphy had a blood-alcohol content of 0.19 percent and an open bottle of vodka in his car when he was stopped at a sobriety checkpoint on Sagamore Parkway in West Lafayette on April 18, 2002, the night after his business had hosted the Lincoln Day Dinner, a Republican fund-raiser.

Sandy said Murphy, who was keeping his alcoholism hidden at the time, had consumed a large amount of alcohol immediately after the event and planned to make it home "before it hit him."

"Since his arrest, he has abstained completely from alcohol," Sandy said.

While Murphy maintained his sobriety, his attorneys exhausted nearly every legal maneuver available to prevent a conviction and delay the inevitable jail term that would result. Because he had two previous misdemeanor drunken driving convictions, the Class D felony conviction in the 2002 case brought a minimum nonsuspendable jail term of six months.

At Murphy's request, Morrissey delayed the start of the jail term until March 3. With maximum time off for good behavior, Murphy likely will be out of jail by early June.

Sandy asked Morrissey not to penalize Murphy for the many legal challenges. They included an Indiana Court of Appeals challenge of the sobriety checkpoint on Fourth Amendment grounds and a post-conviction relief petition in which he attempted to have his 1999 conviction reversed, claiming he had received bad legal advice leading to his guilty plea.

"From the day I met this man, he was all about accepting responsibility," Sandy said.

Sandy said he refused to represent Murphy unless Murphy allowed him to challenge the constitutionality of the sobriety checkpoint. In fact, Sandy said, he would have preferred to go to trial in the 2002 case, because he was eager to challenge the credibility of the police officers involved in the arrest and the validity of the breath test machine used.

But Murphy finally put his foot down and demanded to plead guilty so he could put the case behind him, Sandy said.

Loyd urged the judge not to give Murphy too much credit for his guilty plea. "We were essentially on the eve of trial," he said.

Sandy said Murphy's resume includes "three pages of philanthropic projects that Gregg is hands-on day to day."

"His absence," he said, "is going to hurt the community."

The sentence

In addition to a six-month jail term, Judge Michael Morrissey sentenced Gregg Murphy to a year on house arrest, one year on supervised probation and six months on unsupervised probation.

During his probation period, Murphy must:

Additionally, if the Bureau of Motor Vehicles finds him to be a habitual traffic violator, his driver's license will be suspended for 10 years. He'll be able to apply for reinstatement after five years.