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By KEVIN WACK Staff Writer January 22, 2008

Alton Grover, a repeat driving offender whose mug shots were featured Monday morning on the front page of the Portland Press Herald, was arrested a few hours later at a South Portland motel.

South Portland police arrested Grover at the Maine Motel on Main Street around 8:30 a.m., according to Lt. Christopher Cook.

Grover, 58, was wanted on a warrant for failing to pay a fine related to a charge of driving with a suspended license, Cook said.

A clerk at the South Portland motel said Grover had been staying there for about two months.

Grover was taken to the Cumberland County Jail, where he was being held late Monday in lieu of $1,050 bail.

Monday's newspaper article -- part of a three-day series about the dangers posed in Maine by drivers whose licenses have been suspended -- highlighted the state bureaucracy's failure to process one of Grover's driving convictions in a timely manner.

Because it took state officials five months to record one of Grover's driving convictions, he received a five-day jail term following a subsequent arrest, rather than the six-month sentence he would have received if the bureaucracy had processed the paperwork more quickly.

During the past three decades, Grover has accumulated at least 36 driving-related convictions, according to state records.

In 2006 alone, Grover was convicted of operating under the influence, driving to endanger, operating without a license, illegal attachment of license plates and, on three separate occasions, driving with a suspended license.

Staff Writer Kevin Wack can be contacted at 791-6365 or at:

kwack@pressherald.com