While megastar Justin Bieber has vowed to get clean and stay out of trouble, his latest legal troubles may put his promise to the test.
Last Thursday in a tiny town in Canada, Justin Bieber plead guilty to assault and careless driving that involved an incident with photographers and his then girlfriend Selena Gomez.
The incident, that took place August 29, 2014,resulted in a plea bargain when the government reduced a dangerous driving charge in exchange for a guilty plea. Justin Bieber intentionally drove a four-wheel ATV into a van two photographers were using to stake him out at his family’s rural property, according to an agreed statement of facts.
The pop star then started to hitt one of them, Todd Gillis, 47, who said he was able to fend off the tiny singer who was yelling at him to leave.
Bieber landed multiple punches on Gillis through the window of the parked van.
While Justin did not hurt the large photagrapher, he was sore in his shoulder afterwards and most likely received a large settlement from Bieber in order to agree to the reduced charges.
In a surprising twist, the photographer was also found guilty of trespassing on Justin Bieber’s family home, which set the above events in motion.
Justin, for his part, appeared via video from his California criminal defense attorney‘s office. He was fined $750 for the careless driving and his assault charges were dismissed. It was unclear if he had to participate in a pretrial diversion program in order to secure the dismissal.
On the day he got arrested, he and his then girlfriend Selena Gomez took an ATV that seats two people, one in front of the other, to the nearby home of a family member. They were on vacation and it was reported that they were driving on roads with no helmets. Meanwhile they were being staked out by two photographers both established paparazzi who had shot them before.
Selena Gomez drove on the way out, but Justin Bieber drove on the way back, and spotted the photographers parked in a driveway up ahead as he approached his own driveway. He drove at them, intentionally colliding with the front right side of their van. The police were unable to determine where exactly the impact occurred, whether on or off the highway, but there was evidence that the van, previously parked, had been moving forward at the moment of impact.
After crashing into the van, Justin immediately raced up and started to batter the photographer.
His criminal charges were dropped, in part, because at the time of this incident, he had no other criminal record. Since this incident, he has had several run ins with the law in both California and Florida. His publicist had no comment after this latest incident and his twitter feed was unusually quiet as well.
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