RIMA FAKIH, the Michigan beauty queen who made headlines two years ago by becoming the first Arab-American crowned Miss USA will stand trial in March on a drunken-driving charge unless a plea deal is reached, a judge said.
Judge Brigette Officer set a March 14 trial date for Fakih, who made her first court appearance since the Dec 3 traffic stop in the Detroit enclave of Highland Park.
Fakih, 26, has said she wasn't drinking that night, but two police breath tests put her blood alcohol content at over twice the legal limit.
"I apologise. My lawyer doesn't want me to talk," Fakih told reporters outside court.
Fakih, whose family moved to New York from Lebanon in 1993 and then to Detroit suburb of Dearborn 10 years later, won the Miss USA Pageant in 2010, becoming the first Arab-American to do so.
Supporters described her win as a victory for diversity, saying it countered negative stereotypes about people of Middle Eastern descent that have flourished in post-9/11 America.(AP)
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