Charges: Ex-Viking Everson Griffen was drunk, had cocaine when pulled over on I-35W

Former Minnesota Viking Everson Griffen was drunk and had cocaine on him when he was pulled over and arrested in Minneapolis, according to charges.

The traffic stop occurred about 11:30 p.m. May 28 on southbound Interstate 35W near Lake Street.

Griffen, who played for the Vikings from 2010 to 2019 and again in 2021, remained jailed until Saturday, when he posted a $12,000 non-cash bond. He’s due in court on June 13. A message was left Friday with the attorney who represented him in a previous, recent drunken driving case, seeking a response to the latest allegations.

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

The trooper pulled over the car and saw Everson driving with a passenger. Everson said he was heading to Mystic Lake Casino in Prior Lake. During the conversation, the trooper detected an odor of alcohol coming from 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, and it 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 the past year that Griffen has been arrested on suspicion of drunken driving. In July, he was stopped in Chanhassen and accused of driving 60 mph in a 40 mph zone. His blood-alcohol content was measured at 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. He was cited and convicted of failure to drive with due care, a petty misdemeanor. On Dec. 7 in Shakopee, he was stopped by police 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 has 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 from law enforcement. 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.

The fourth-round draft choice from USC returned to play 17 of the Vikings’ 18 regular-season and postseason games in 2019. He spent 2020 with Dallas and Detroit before the Vikings brought him back for the 2021 season in a one-year deal.