The pop star Britney Spears will avoid further jail time after pleading guilty on Monday to reckless driving involving alcohol and drugs.
A lawyer for Ms. Spears, who was initially charged with driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol, a more severe offense, entered the plea on her behalf during an arraignment in Ventura County Superior Court.
As part of the plea deal, she will serve 12 months probation, complete a three-month substance abuse program and pay a fine of $571. She was sentenced to one day in jail, and credited for time served.
When prosecutors charged Ms. Spears last week, they did not say what drug she might have taken, nor did they disclose it in court on Monday. After the hearing, her lawyer, Michael A. Goldstein, declined to comment on the drug.
But Commissioner Matthew Nemerson, who is overseeing the case, ordered that Ms. Spears may possess drugs only with a valid prescription, and that she must meet with a psychologist weekly and psychiatrist twice monthly. If the police stop her while she is driving, she could be asked to submit to a test for alcohol or drugs, and her car could be searched for those substances.
As he walked from the court toward the parking lot after the proceeding, Mr. Goldstein said Ms. Spears was “doing well.”
“I don’t think anybody is happy about pleading guilty to anything, but under the circumstances and to get this behind her, I think everybody is pleased with the result,” he said. “We appreciate the district attorney recognizing the positive steps that Britney has taken to help herself, and we expect that she’ll continue to do so.”
At a news conference after Monday’s proceeding, Erik Nasarenko, the Ventura County district attorney, said his office supported the singer’s efforts to undergo mental health and substance abuse treatment. “We do not want Ms. Spears to reoffend,” he said.
Last month, after her arrest, one of Ms. Spears’s representatives said she had voluntarily checked herself into a treatment facility.
Ms. Spears, 44, was arrested on the evening of March 4, when the California Highway Patrol said its officers observed her driving fast and erratically. A representative for the pop star said then that her actions were “completely inexcusable” and that “hopefully this can be the first step in long-overdue change that needs to occur in Britney’s life.”
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, before her mental health and substance abuse became a topic of speculation, Ms. Spears was known for hits like “ … Baby One More Time,” “Oops! … I Did It Again” and “Toxic.”
In 2007, she was seen with a shaved head, hitting a photographer’s car with an umbrella, and in early 2008, she was twice taken to a hospital for involuntary psychiatric evaluations. Later that year, when she was 26, she was placed in a conservatorship that gave her father control over her life and finances.
A judge terminated the conservatorship 13 years later after Ms. Spears vocally objected to the arrangement, saying she had been drugged, compelled to work against her will and pushed into involuntary medical evaluations and rehab.
Matt Stevens is a Times reporter who writes about arts and culture from Los Angeles.
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