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18
August 2006
Mel
Gibson Ordered To Attend
AA
Meetings
Mel
Gibson
has been ordered to
attend Alcoholics
Anonymous
meetings by a judge
after he pleaded no
contest to a
drink-driving
charge.
The
Oscar-winning director
was given three years'
probation, California
officials
said.
He
did not appear at the
hearing but entered the
plea through his lawyer,
the district attorney's
office said.
During
his arrest, Mel Gibson
made what he has said
were "harmful"
anti-Semitic comments.
He subsequently
apologised.
Mel
Gibson said he had
suffered a relapse in
his battle with
alcoholism.
He
was arrested on 28 July
after being seen driving
at 87mph (139km/h) on a
45mph (72km/h) stretch
of Malibu's Pacific
Coast Highway, the local
sheriff's department
said.
Mel
Gibson pleaded no
contest to driving with
excess alcohol in his
blood.
But
in a deal with the
court, two other charges
- driving under the
influence and having an
open bottle of tequila
in his car - were both
dropped.
"This
was an appropriate
outcome which addresses
all the public safety
concerns of drinking and
driving," prosecutor
Gina Satriano
said.
A
no contest plea is not
an admission of guilt,
but for sentencing
purposes it is
equivalent to a guilty
plea.
Authorities
said his blood-alcohol
level was found to be
0.12%. The legal limit
in California is
0.08%.
Mel
Gibson was ordered to
attend Alcoholics
Anonymous meetings five
times a week for
four-and-a-half months,
and then three per week
for a further
seven-and-a-half
months.
The
actor also has to
complete a three-month
alcohol education and
counselling programme
for first-time
offenders.
Mel
Gibson had also
volunteered to appear in
a public information
film on the hazards of
drink-driving, but that
was not made a condition
of his
sentence.
Los
Angeles County Sheriff
Lee Baca has so far
denied the media access
to audio and video tapes
of Gibson's arrest on
the grounds that they
are part of an
"investigatory file" and
exempt from public
records laws.
The
issue arose because a
sheriff's spokesman said
Mel Gibson's arrest
occurred "without
incident", and made no
mention of the
anti-Semitic
remarks.
Asked
whether the tapes would
be released, Mr Baca
said: "I'm looking at
that right now - I've
got to go back and look
at everything that was
there."
Gibson,
50, is due back in court
for a progress report in
January.
He
won a best director
Oscar for his 1995 film
Braveheart, in which he
also starred.
His
2004 biblical epic, The
Passion of the Christ,
was recently named the
most controversial movie
to date by US magazine
Entertainment
Weekly.
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