Oft-arrested reality TV quasi-star Jason Wahler, 21, owes a tow truck driver at least $5,000 for a 2006 fight, an L.A. jury decided this afternoon.
The former Hills fixture was charged with battery after punching Dario Stevenson in the face and hurling racial slurs at him in September 2006.
His blood alcohol level was an impressive .22 at the time.
Although Wahler’s 60-day prison sentence was suspended after he checked into a rehab center in 2007, Stevenson’s lawyer filed a civil suit against him.
A jury of eight women and four men concluded that Jason Wahler had committed an act of battery. His attorney argued that the L.A. native and his girlfriend at the time, model Kristen DeLuca, were too drunk to know what they were saying.
Dario Stevenson may receive punitive damages as well as the $5,000, but they will likely be drastically smaller than the $1 million he sought.
Jason Wahler has a history of drinking, violence and legal woes.
In April 2007, he served three weeks in jail on criminal trespassing, assault and underage drinking after punching a Seattle hotel security guard in the face.
In February 2008, he was banned from the USC apartment of his fiancee Katja Decker-Sadowski for using racial slurs against the complex’s security guard.
He’s also been arrested for drug possession and resisting a public officer during an underage drinking sweep in North Carolina. Yeah. The guy gets around.
Wahler rose to fame as the deadbeat, often-drunken beau of Lauren Conrad on Laguna Beach and then later, after she dubiously took him back on The Hills.
Conrad famously turned down a prestigious summer internship in Paris with Teen Vogue to spend the summer with him in 2005. They broke up afterwards.