Hamptons DA says Justin Timberlake isn’t getting special treatment with plea deal: ‘We’re treating this case like any other’
Justin Timberlake may have reached a plea deal in his Hamptons DWI case, but Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney says that the pop star isn’t receiving any special treatment.
Tierney wouldn’t comment specifically on the alleged pact — which would drop the case from a DWI to a traffic violation — but told Page Six exclusively the day before Timberlake, 43, is expected in court in Sag Harbor: “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.”
He 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.”
But he said that the “Cry Me a River” singer won’t get any VIP treatment from his office: “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.”
He added: “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.”
TMZ reported that Timberlake’s tentative deal will allow him to dodge drunk driving charges and instead be slapped with a traffic violation.
As part of the the reported deal, to be entered on Friday, Timberlake will pay a reported $300 to $500 fine, but the exact fine would be set by the judge in the case.
When we asked if things could change on Friday, Tierney did say, “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.”
He added that, while it’s often hard to reach a deal between all the 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.”
While the Timberlake incident is prominently on the radar of celebrity watchers, Tierney and his office have also been working on more serious cases, including the blockbuster trial of Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann, which Tierney will prosecute himself.
“I think we handle about 54,000 or so cases a year approximately,” he said. “So we’re dealing with a tremendous amount of cases. We dealt with the Gilgo Beach investigation, which was certainly a significant case. All of our cases are significant. If they were not important, we wouldn’t do them.”
He said of the Timberlake 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.”
The DA doesn’t recall where he was when he heard about the Timberlake arrest.
“I remember finding out about it,” he said. “I don’t remember where I was. I mean, I do remember where I was in a number of other cases, not this one. You know, fortunately, no one was hurt in this case… we just had a case where it’s alleged that an individual went through a nail salon and killed four people. That happened on a Friday afternoon. I remember distinctly where I was after hearing that terrible news, but not this case.”
Timberlake was arrested in Sag Harbor in June and refused to take a breathalyzer after blowing through a stop sign near the swanky American Hotel, we reported previously.
Timberlake had claimed he had just “one martini” with friends, but police said he failed a series of field sobriety tests and displayed multiple signs of intoxication. But he allegedly showed signs of poor balance and an inability to follow instructions, according to police.
The former NSYNC star and his local power attorney in the case, Edward Burke Jr., have repeatedly denied that he was drunk at the time of his arrest.
Burke’s office told The Post he was “not able to make a comment” about the potential deal as of Wednesday.
Following his arrest, Justice Carl Irace suspended Timberlake’s driver’s license.
