Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney assured that even though singer Justin Timberlake has accepted a plea deal in his DWI case, he has not been given any special treatment. The pop singer recently accepted a plea deal in his DWI case, which happened in June this year. Now he will have to appear in court on September 13 to plead to a lesser offense than DWI.
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Justin Timberlake has no special privileges
Tierney didn’t reveal his thoughts on Timberlake’s plea deal, but he did tell Page Six, “He’s charged with driving under the influence…” [Then] Drunk driving is a lesser charge, which happens in many cases. So we will continue to negotiate the case,” the lawyer added. “So we’ll see. We’ll see how it goes in court, and whether or not we can reach a settlement… we’ll have to see.”
Regarding Friday’s court hearing with the singer, he said, “There are certain things that the prosecution wants [and] There are certain things that the defense wants, and there are certain things that the court wants. So you take all those things into consideration. You go to court and see if you can work them out. So we will see if we can resolve it tomorrow.”
Though the outcome was uncertain, Hampton’s D.A. told media outlets that, “One thing we want to make sure of is … being consistent, and we don’t want to treat any defendant better than others, you know, because of any perceived notoriety.”
He added, “But we certainly don’t want to treat people badly for the same reason. So we’re working hard to make sure that we treat this case just like any other case like this.”
As per a report by TMZ, the alleged agreement will allow the Cry Me a River singer to plead guilty to a general traffic violation instead of a drunk driving charge.
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Timberlake’s court hearing on Friday
Timberlake will have to pay a fine of $300 to $500 under the reported deal, but the amount will be decided in the courtroom. When asked if any changes could be made at Friday’s hearing, Tierney said, “I think that happens … a lot of the time. I think that’s the process as we speak.” [that] All the parties, the prosecution and the defense, come together. They discuss the case. We have to provide discovery, make sure we do all that and we discuss the case and then we discuss the case with the court.”
He also said there have been discussions with the defence and “conferencing with the court”, which Tierney noted, “as we do in all our cases”. However, the outcome of this will be announced in court on Friday.
Tierney and his office have their hands full with other serial cases, such as the blockbuster trial of Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuerman, which Tierney will prosecute himself. As for Timberlake’s case, the attorneys agreed it falls at a lower level of crime.
He told the media outlet, “This is a misdemeanor case, not a murder or a felony case. So, you know, I think basically the challenges and what we try to do is we try to look at this just like every other case of its kind. And we don’t look at it any differently just because we have a lot of media scrutiny. And the media scrutiny in this case is certainly more than what you would normally see in a misdemeanor case.”
The NSYNC star was arrested in Sag Harbor in June after he drove through a stop sign while, as he claimed, he had “just had one martini.” Tierney doesn’t remember where he was when he heard about Timberlake’s arrest. He told the media outlet, “I don’t remember where I was. I mean, I remember where I was in a lot of other cases, not in this case. You know, luckily, no one was hurt in this case… We just had a case where it was alleged that a man went into a nail salon and killed four people. It happened on a Friday afternoon. I remember very well where I was when I heard that horrible news, but not in this case.”
