As expected, Justin Timberlake appeared in a Long Island, New York court Friday to plead guilty to one count of driving while impaired stemming from the singer’s arrest in June.
Timberlake was initially charged with driving while intoxicated, which he pleaded not guilty to, following the Sag Harbor arrest, but earlier this month agreed to plead guilty to the lesser charge of driving while impaired.
The difference between the two charges comes down to blood-alcohol content — a BAC of more than .05 “is legal evidence that you are impaired,” but “a BAC of .08 or higher is evidence of intoxication,” the New York Department of Motor Vehicles says — with “impaired” carrying a lesser penalty; if Timberlake had been found guilty of misdemeanour driving while intoxicated, he faced up to a year in prison.
Instead, after pleading guilty to the noncriminal impaired charge, Timberlake will only have to pay a fine of $500, make a public safety service announcement, and serve up to 40 hours of community service at a nonprofit of his choosing, NBC News reported.
Outside of the courthouse, Timberlake issued the PSA. “This is a mistake that I made, but I’m hoping that whoever is watching and listening right now can learn from this mistake,” said the former boy band heartthrob — who was ordered to deliver a public statement after copping a plea deal to a lesser violation in the case. “Even one drink — don’t get behind the wheel of the car.”
Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney told Page Six prior to Timberlake’s hearing Friday, “When you talk about criminal liability, this is certainly on the lower scale… This is a misdemeanor case, and not a murder or felony case. So, you know, I think basically the challenges and what we strive to do is we strive to treat it as every other case of its kind. And we don’t treat it differently just because we are getting a lot of media scrutiny. And the media scrutiny in this case is certainly far in excess to that — not what you would normally see in a case involving a misdemeanour.”
Timberlake was arrested on suspicion of DWI back in June. According to a previous court filing, police officers clocked Timberlake allegedly blowing through a stop sign and then failing to “keep to the right side of the road” for multiple blocks.
Upon being pulled over, prosecutors said, Timberlake’s “eyes were bloodshot and glassy, a strong odour of alcoholic beverage was emanating from his breath, he was unable to divide attention, he had slowed speech, he was unsteady afoot, and he performed poorly on all standardized field sobriety tests.” Timberlake also refused to take a breathalyzer at the time.
At a subsequent hearing, Timberlake’s lawyer argued that the singer was “not intoxicated and should not have been arrested” while also suggesting the police had made “a number of very significant errors in this case.”
From Rolling Stone US
