While he may be a globally recognized singer/songwriter, music producer, and actor, Justin Timberlake is not receiving any special treatment regarding his Hamptons DWI case, according to Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney.
Timberlake may have reached a plea deal in his case; however, Tierney would not comment specifically on the alleged pact, dropping the case from a DWI to a traffic violation. The day before the “Prince of Pop,” 43, is expected in court in Sag Harbor, the Suffolk County DA stated: “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. So we’ll see. We’ll see how it plays out in court, whether or not we could come to an agreement… We have to see.”
Tierney added of the Friday hearing: “There are certain things that the prosecution wants [and] certain things that the defense 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 things are still being worked out between Timberlake, the prosecutor, and the court, Tierney stated that the “Sexy Back” singer is not getting any VIP treatment from his office. The Suffolk County DA shared, “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.”
Despite not wanting to show Timberlake any special treatment, Tierney also stated: “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 potential plea deal may allow Timberlake to dodge drunk driving charges in exchange for a traffic violation and have to pay a reported $300 to $500 fine, but the case judge sets the exact fine.
Tierney addressed if things could change by the time of Friday’s case, and the DA 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 defense. 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.”
Further, despite it being difficult to reach a deal between all parties, “We’ve been discussing the case with the defense, as we do with all our cases; we’ve been conferencing with the court. And we’ll just have to see what happens tomorrow.”
In conjunction with Timberlake’s prominent celebrity case, Tierney’s office has also been working on more serious cases, like the blockbuster trial of Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann, which the attorney will prosecute himself.
While Tierney’s office would not do a case if it were unimportant, he also said of Timberlake’s case: “When you talk about criminal liability, this is certainly on the lower scale… This is a misdemeanor 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 an a misdemeanor.”
This past June, the singer/songwriter was arrested in Sag Harbor and refused to take a breathalyzer after blowing through a stop sign. Despite Timberlake’s claims he has “one martini” with friends, the police said he failed a series of field sobriety tests and displayed other signs of intoxication.
Timberlake and Edward Burke Jr., the musician’s local power attorney, have repeatedly denied Timberlake was drunk at the time of his arrest.
