Justin Bieber pleads guilty to careless driving, resisting arrest

Pop star Justin Bieber has pleaded guilty to careless driving and resisting arrest in connection with a January arrest in Florida on suspicion of DUI, driving without a valid license and resisting arrest, according to court filings.

Bieber will serve no jail time, but was ordered to donate $50,000 to a charity, pay $500 in court fines and attend an anger-management course, court papers show.

The 20-year-old was arrested in Miami Beach on Jan. 23 along with R&B singer Khalil Amir Sharieff in what police first believed to be a drag-racing incident. At 0.014, Bieber’s blood-alcohol level was below Florida’s 0.02 legal limit for drivers younger than 21, but a urine test found marijuana and the prescription drug alprazolam in his system.

The terms of the deal allowed him to plead to a lesser charge of careless driving. Bieber did not appear in court on Wednesday.

“The strengths and weaknesses of the case motivated everyone to seek this appropriate resolution. The ultimate purpose of the Miami Beach Police Department’s initial traffic stop was to end some rash juvenile type conduct before a tragedy occurred,” Miami-Dade County’s state attorney, Katherine Fernandez Rundle, said in a statement. “The intervention and counseling parts of the plea should provide a pathway toward adult responsibility.”

The charge of driving without a valid license was dropped after the “Boyfriend” singer provided proof of a legitimate license.

The plea deal closes the latest in a series of controversies for the Canadian pop star, who last month pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor vandalism charge in Los Angeles.

In that incident, Bieber was ordered to pay more than $80,000 in restitution, serve two years’ probation, attend anger-management courses and perform community service after allegedly throwing eggs at a neighbor’s home in Calabasas.

The singer moved from that neighborhood in February but came back to the L.A. area in June after spending some time in Atlanta. Since his return, police responded numerous times to complaints about noise and fans’ misconduct at the Beverly Hills condo building where he’s taken up residence. No related charges have been filed against the singer.

Bieber was also accused of snatching a woman’s phone from her purse in Sherman Oaks and assaulting a limousine driver in Toronto. No charges were filed in the Sherman Oaks incident; a court hearing on the Toronto allegations has been delayed until Sept. 8, according to a report by the Toronto Sun.

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