Mel Gibson Arrested on Suspicion of DUI

LOS ANGELES, July 28, 2006 — -- Mel Gibson was stopped early this morning for speeding on the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, Los Angeles County Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said.

When Gibson's interactions with the Sheriff's deputy raised suspicions that he was driving under the influence of alcohol, he was arrested, Whitmore said.

"We arrested Mr. Gibson on suspicion of driving under the influence, and we took him into the station without incident and we released him and gave him a citation," he said. "We will now prepare the case."

Gibson's arrest record reveals he was stopped at 2:36 a.m. and booked at 4:06 a.m. at the Lost Hills Station.

Gibson, 50, owns property in the Malibu area.

Gibson's publicists at Rogers & Cowen in Hollywood released a brief statement saying: "At this time we don't have any information on this matter but are checking into it." His attorney, Tom Hansen, has not yet responded to an inquiry from ABC News.

Gibson has spoken publicly about his struggles with alcohol in the past.

In a 2004 interview for ABC News, he told Diane Sawyer: "I would get addicted to anything. Anything at all, OK?" When Sawyer asked him more specifically if it was alcohol, he said "Yeah, yeah mostly. It was, yeah."

Saying addiction was his "flaw," he acknowledged to Sawyer that he'd driven under the influence of alcohol in the past. While working on the film "Mrs. Soffel" in Toronto in 1984, he reportedly ran a red light and drove into another car after consuming enough alcohol to put him over the legal limit.

"I used to drive inebriated. I mean, this is, this is the height of careless stupidity. And when you think about that kind of insanity and that you, I look back at that now and I go, what was I thinking?" Gibson told Sawyer.

"It's only by, by grace from above that I, you know, that I'm not in a pine box somewhere," he added.

He told Sawyer that it was through prayer that he was able to recover. "I just hit my knees and just said help, you know?"

Gibson was born in Peekskill, N.Y., but moved to Australia where he studied acting. In recent years he has focused on directing. He won the Academy Award for directing "Braveheart," released in 1995. His next directing project, "Apocalypto¸" will be released this winter by the Walt Disney Company, the parent company for ABC News. It is described as a "Mayan epic" filmed in Veracruz, Mexico