Amanda Bynes copped a plea deal in a drunk driving case that goes back to 2012. During her arrest she refused to submit to any type of sobriety testing. She entered a plea of no contest to the misdemeanor charge of reckless driving with an alcohol component during her sentencing on Monday. She did not appear at the Los Angeles Superior Court where the hearing took place.
Judge Edward Moreton sentenced the former Nickelodeon star to three years of probation as well as three months of an alcohol education program. It was back in April of 2012 when the actress was arrested in West Hollywood after she swiped the side of a patrol car with her BMW. She was charged with DUI after refusing the sobriety test.
That incident was the beginning of the public recognition of Amanda Bynes’s apparent mental illness. Her behavior became more bizarre from that point on. She was known for wearing bizarre wigs and disguises out in public and even at court hearings. She even went so far as to send a tweet to President Obama in which she asked him to fire the officers who arrested her for the DUI incident.
It was about a year ago that Amanda Bynes entered a facility for psychiatric care after starting a fire in front of a home in Thousand Oaks–a suburb of Los Angeles. Her mother was granted temporary control of the actress’s legal and financial affairs. Bynes is presently out of the facility now and said to be living with her mother, who is often seen dropping Bynes off at the gym. She is also on probation for driving with a suspended license.
Hopefully this is the last of the court cases for Amanda Bynes. The young star needs to work hard on putting the pieces of her life back together. She is likely still under some sort of out patient psychiatric care. With the help of her family she can likely function on her own again and possibly even re-enter the celebrity world one day.
Image via Wikimedia Commons
