Rocker’s Girlfriend Guilty : Court: Tanya Hijazi plea-bargains in attack on woman. Rick James still faces trial.

The girlfriend of rock singer Rick James pleaded guilty Wednesday to attacking a woman in a ritzy Sunset Boulevard hotel while James allegedly looked on and then also beat and choked the victim.

In a surprise move on the first day of her trial, Tanya Anne Hijazi, 23, pleaded guilty to one count of assault with a deadly weapon in the beating of a 34-year-old woman at the St. James’s Club hotel in West Hollywood on Nov. 2, 1992.

Hijazi and James were on trial for two separate incidents in which women said they were assaulted.

Under a plea bargain, Hijazi, who remains free on $175,000 bail, will be sentenced to four years in state prison on Sept. 21 by San Fernando Superior Court Judge Michael Hoff.

The victim of the attack, Mary Sauger of West Hollywood, testified during a preliminary hearing in December that Hijazi became angry and began slapping her as the two women had drinks with James in a hotel suite. She said that James then slapped her until she lost consciousness. She was revived with water, and then James slapped her again and choked her, she testified.

Sauger said she did not go to a hospital until after talking two days later with an attorney, who advised her that she could seek civil damages against James. However, Sauger has not filed a lawsuit against the singer.

Meanwhile, jury selection started Wednesday in James’ trial. The so-called “King of Funk” faces life in prison if convicted of a series of charges, including mayhem, for the Sauger attack and for allegedly burning and sexually assaulting a woman in another incident on July 16, 1991.

Ten charges against Hijazi in that incident were dismissed by prosecutors in return for her plea in the Sauger case. She did not commit herself, however, to testify against James and will not do so, said Hijazi’s attorney, Leonard B. Levine.

In the 1991 case, James and Hijazi allegedly took cocaine with a woman at James’ home in the Hollywood Hills above Studio City, and then tied her to a chair naked. Prosecutors say James burned the woman on her legs and stomach with a hot cocaine pipe and then forced the woman to perform sexual acts with Hijazi while he watched.

The woman said that she, James, Hijazi and several others had been using cocaine almost nonstop for a week, and that she had earlier had consensual sex with James at least twice.

James and Hijazi were initially arrested in August, 1991, after the woman in the torture case went to a hospital to receive medical attention for burns on her legs and stomach and hospital officials notified police. She was initially reluctant to name James, but later relented.

The 45-year-old James, born James Ambrose Johnson, is free on $250,000 bail. Prosecutors hope to present opening statements in his case late next week. The musician, whose last album was released by Warner Bros. in 1989, is best known for his 1981 hit song “Super Freak.” He has been without a recording contract since 1991.