Justin Timberlake pleaded guilty to a non-criminal offense at a Long Island courthouse Friday to resolve the DWI he got earlier this summer in the Hamptons, professing he drank that night, it impaired him and he showed poor judgment.
A public statement on the perils of drinking and driving was part of the plea agreement. The judge said Timberlake could get 25 to 40 hours, depending on how sincere he appeared. He ultimately gave him 25 hours.
Timberlake also has to pay a $500 fine.
The charge went from DWI to driving while ability impaired. Timberlake also has to pay a fine. The fine amount hasn’t yet been determined. The judge said Timberlake also has to make a public statement on why people shouldn’t drink and drive, and added community service to his sentence. He said he’d have to do 25 to 40 hours, with the number ultimately depending on how well he goes in his public statement. Timberlake said he’d be willing to do the time.
Driving while impaired is a traffic violation that carries a $300 to $500 fine and a 90-day license suspension.
He initially pleaded not guilty to a drunken driving charge, and his attorney insisted in early August that he was not intoxicated.
Justin Timberlake was arrested on Long Island’s Sag Harbor on a driving while intoxicated (DWI) charge after refusing three times to take a chemical test.
Timberlake had been charged with the misdemeanor on June 18 after police said he ran a stop sign and veered out of his lane in Sag Harbor, a one-time whaling village mentioned in Herman Melville’s classic novel “Moby-Dick” that’s nestled amid the Hamptons, around 100 miles east of New York City.
The boy band singer-turned-solo star and actor was driving a 2025 BMW around 12:30 a.m. when an officer stopped him and determined he was intoxicated, according to a court document.
“His eyes were bloodshot and glassy, a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage was emanating from his breath, he was unable to divide attention, he had slowed speech, he was unsteady afoot and he performed poorly on all standardized field sobriety tests,” the court papers said.
Timberlake, 43, told the officer at the time that he had one martini and was following some friends home, according to the documents. After being arrested and taken to a police station in nearby East Hampton, he refused a breath test.
The 10-time Grammy winner began performing as a young Disney Mouseketeer, rose to fame as part of the boy band NSYNC and embarked on a solo recording career in the early 2000s.
