90 Day Fiancé season 11 star Mark Bessette was charged with driving while impaired after an incident in North Carolina in 1984, In Touch can exclusively reveal.
The pilot, 59, was hit with the DWI charge after an offense in Durham County, North Carolina, on November 17, 1984, according to Durham District Court online records viewed by In Touch on Friday, April 11. He pleaded guilty on January 2, 1985, and was sentenced to one year of unsupervised probation. The case was disposed.
In addition to the DWI charge, Mark was charged with reckless driving to endanger and unsealed wine/liquor in a pass area after what appeared to be the same offense on November 17, 1984. These charges were both voluntarily dismissed without leave by the district attorney.
Mark made his reality TV debut on 90 Day Fiancé season 11 with fiancé Aminata “Mina” Mack. During the premiere on February 16, it was revealed that Mark’s job as a pilot for private planes led him to meet Mina, 34, in her native Paris, France, in 2019.
“I was on a trip as a pilot to Paris and I was just going out to grab a drink and kind of unwind from the trip and I just ran into this person and took a turn down another direction in my life that I didn’t expect,” he explained. “For two years we were long distance and every time I came back to Paris, I didn’t want to leave her and have to go back to work, and I didn’t want to have to go back to the U.S. So it just clicked and I just thought, ‘What am I waiting for?’”
Mark proposed to Mina six months later, and she soon discovered that she was pregnant with their daughter, Maria. The Parisian model is also a mom to a son named Clayton, 9, from a previous relationship, while Mark shares daughter Jordan, 27, and son Jack, 23, with his ex-wife.
Though Mina and Mark were excited to start a life together in the U.S., as seen in season 11, Mina struggled with leaving Clayton behind, as he had to remain in Paris until his passport was processed. Additionally, Mina and Jordan have butted heads a few times so far. Jordan has felt unsure about her father’s fiancée’s intentions, and she was uncomfortable with Mina’s behavior at Maria’s baptism in Paris.
“There was a cocktail hour, there was a catered dinner and multiple open bars. It was very over the top for a baptism party. Mina was about three hours, four hours late to the party and kind of left my whole family there while she was getting glammed up. It didn’t feel like my family being there was much of a priority to her,” Jordan said in the premiere. “So, I kind of left Paris feeling that maybe she could be taking advantage of him, could be going after his money, could just be trying to come to the U.S. I really don’t know.”
Mina later called Jordan a “snake” in episode 3. Their disagreements even led the mom of two to uninvite Jordan from her and Mark’s wedding.
“If that’s how it’s going to be, I don’t want to be there anyways,” Jordan told her father in episode 6.
Despite the issues between Jordan and Mina, the pair agreed to “take things day by day” for Mark’s sake. Mina later apologized to Jordan and reinvited her to the wedding in episode 8.
Fans will have to wait and see how Mark and Mina’s relationship unfolds when new episodes of 90 Day Fiancé air on Sundays at 8 p.m. ET on TLC.
