Mel Gibson won’t be going to jail for driving under the influence, instead he will be spending a lot of time in group therapy.
A statement released by the L.A. County District Attorney’s office Thursday announced that the 50-year-old actor reached a plea agreement with prosecutors in his drunk-driving case. Basically, it spares him jail time but requires him to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, restricts his driver’s license for 90 days and sentences him to three years of probation. Gibson will also have to pay $1,300 in fines.
In addition, the L.A. district attorney’s office reports that Gibson “volunteered to enter rehab immediately and to do a public service announcement on the hazards of drinking and driving.”
Gibson did not appear in court, rather, his lawyer entered the plea on his behalf—ironically, before the same judge who sentenced actor Robert Downey Jr. to jail on drug charges.
Under the terms of the plea deal, Gibson will be spending a lot of time at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. He is required to attend AA meetings five times a week for four and a half months and three AA meetings per week for an additional seven and a half months. I wonder what the other members of his group will think when they see the actor at their group session. I also wonder how much of this would be fodder for the media had Gibson not made the reported anti-Semitic comments during his arrest. For those unfamiliar with Gibson’s arrest (have you been living under a rock), the actor was pulled over by police along the Pacific Coast Highway shortly after 2 a.m. on July 28th for driving his 2006 Lexus at speeds exceeding 85 miles per hour.
Many have speculated that this incident was a cry for help. Others have worded their views about Gibson’s arrest in other less diplomatic terms. Regardless, I’m sure that the Academy Award-winning director would like to put this nasty incident behind him. Though I’m not sure how that will be possible if you have members of his AA group hounded by the media trying to get every lurid detail from their sessions so that they can use it as headline material for their magazines, TV shows, newspaper articles… or blogs.
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