Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney assured that while singer Justin Timberlake may have reached a plea deal in his DWI case, he has not been provided any special treatment. The pop singer recently reached a plea deal in his DWI case which occurred in June, this year. He must now appear before the court on September 13 to plead for a lesser offence than DWI.
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No special treatment for Justin Timberlake
Tierney did not divulge his thoughts about Timberlake’s plea deal but he told Page Six, “He’s charged with driving while intoxicated… [Then] there’s a lesser charge as driving while impaired, which happens in a number of cases. So we’re going to continue to negotiate the case.” The attorney continued, “So we’ll see. We’ll see how it plays out in court, and whether or not we could come to an agreement… We have to see.”
About the Friday hearing in court with the singer, he said, “Here are certain things that the prosecution wants [and] certain things that the defence wants, and there’s certain things that the court wants. So you factor all of those things in. You go to court and see if you could work them out. So we’ll see if we could work it out tomorrow.”
While the outcome was unsure, Hamptons DA assured as he revealed to the media outlet, “The one thing that we want to make sure we’re doing is… being consistent, and we don’t want to treat any defendant better than others because of, you know, because of any perceived notoriety they may have.”
He added, “But we certainly don’t want to treat people worse for the same reason. So we’re taking pains to make sure that we’re treating this case like any other case of its kind.”
The alleged pact will allow the Cry Me A River singer to replace his charges of drunk driving with a mediocre traffic violation charge, as reported by TMZ.
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Timberlake’s Friday hearing in court
Timberlake will have to pay a fine of $300 to $500 as part of the reported deal but the amount will be fixed in the courtroom. When asked if the hearing on Friday could bring any change, Tierney said, “I think that happens… a lot. I think as we’ve been talking about, the process is [that] the parties get together, the prosecution and defence. They discuss the case. We have to provide discovery, make sure we do all of that and we discuss the case and then we discuss the case with the court.”
He also added that a discussion has been held with the defence and “conferencing with the court” which Tierney mentioned, “as we do with all our cases”. However, the outcome will be revealed on Friday in the courtroom.
Tierney and his office have their plates full with other series cases such as the blockbuster trial of Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann, which Tierney will prosecute himself. Regarding Timberlake’s case, the attorney agreed that it landed on the lower scale of crime.
He said to the media outlet, “This is a misdemeanour 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.”
The NSYNC star was arrested in June in Sag Harbour after he blew past a stop sign after, as he claimed, he had “just one martini”. Tierney did not remember where he was when he heard about the arrest of Timberlake. He revealed to the media outlet, “I don’t remember where I was. I mean, I do remember where I was in a number of other cases, not this one. You know, fortunately, no one was hurt in this case… we just had a case where it’s alleged that an individual went through a nail salon and killed four people. That happened on a Friday afternoon. I remember distinctly where I was after hearing that terrible news, but not this case.”