Hollywood Financier Is Arrested Again

Ryan Kavanaugh, one of Hollywood’s most prominent film financiers, was arrested for drunk driving, speeding and driving with a suspended license in October while still on probation for an earlier conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol.

The new charges, which came to light as a result of court filings made in advance of a hearing to be held next Friday, confront Mr. Kavanaugh with a fight to avoid penalties that could include jail time. That is an unwelcome complication for Relativity Media, of which he is chief executive: the company is embroiled in litigation with Citigroup, a major entertainment industry lender, and is wrestling with a credit crunch that has made it difficult to finance big studio films.

Mr. Kavanaugh, who turned 34 on Thursday, has business ties to nearly every major movie studio. His company’s big deals completed within the last year include a $550 million partnership with Sony Pictures Entertainment to be co-financer of the majority of the studio’s mass-market films over five years. Relativity also has single-film projects in the works that involve DreamWorks, Paramount Vantage and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, according to Studio System, an industry database owned by The New York Times Company.

But most of Mr. Kavanaugh’s business involves NBC Universal. Under a $3 billion deal completed in September, Universal Pictures is relying on Relativity to be co-financer of 75 percent of its movie output through 2015. Relativity’s previous financing deals with Universal have allowed the films “Changeling” and “Frost/Nixon” to reach theaters.

NBC Universal is also in the process of finalizing a deal to sell a small production company, Rogue Pictures, to Mr. Kavanaugh for about $150 million. The purchase would allow him to further his ambitions of becoming as significant a producer of films as he is a financier of them.

A Sony spokesman, Jim Kennedy, said the studio’s film financing deal with Relativity is contractually secure. Universal Pictures said in a statement, “We do not anticipate that this will have any impact on our current business.”

A spokeswoman for Mr. Kavanaugh, Mara Buxbaum, said it would be “inappropriate to comment on a pending legal matter.”

A second drunk driving conviction can bring up to a year in jail in California, and violation of probation can also mean detention. But judges have discretion in imposing such penalties and typically consider the severity of the offense and a defendant’s past behavior.

Mr. Kavanaugh was stopped by a California Highway Patrol officer at 12:41 a.m. in the Westwood district of Los Angeles on Oct. 23, according to records in the Beverly Hills branch of the Los Angeles Superior Court.

According to the records, Mr. Kavanaugh was driving a black Audi at about 60 miles per hour in a zone with a posted speed limit of 35. Along with a speeding charge, he was cited for driving under the influence of alcohol and driving with a blood alcohol content of .08 percent.

An additional charge said Mr. Kavanaugh was driving while his license was suspended as a result of a previous drunk driving conviction. He was not booked or detained, though he was arrested by way of a citation, and is scheduled for arraignment and a hearing on probation violation in Beverly Hills at 8:30 a.m. on Friday.

In May Mr. Kavanaugh pleaded no contest to a drunk driving charge in connection with a 2006 incident in Malibu. According to records in that case, he was initially charged with several violations after the car he was driving hit a police cruiser.

Under a plea bargain that disposed of the earlier case, Mr. Kavanaugh was placed on probation for 36 months, during which time he was prohibited from driving with any measurable amount of alcohol in his bloodstream. Mr. Kavanaugh had completed other terms of his sentence in Malibu, and his lawyers may contend that his license was, in fact, restored at the time of the October stop, according to a person who was briefed on the situation but spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid complicating the case.