March 10, 2011
LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Mel Gibson will offer a plea bargain to seek an "immediate" resolution and avoid jail in a long-running legal dispute over alleged domestic abuse, media reports and his lawyer said Wednesday.
Media reports said the embattled actor-director would plead no contest to the battery charges leveled against him by former girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva after an alleged incident in January 2010 at his Malibu home.
"Mel's priority throughout all of this has been that the best interests of his young daughter, Lucia, and the rest of his children be put first in any decisions made," his lawyer Blair Berk said in a statement.
"It is with only that in mind that he asked me to approach the district attorney with a proposal that would bring all of this to an immediate end," she added, without elaborating.
The TMZ celebrity news website said Gibson was currently in Guatemala, but would be in court on Friday and plead no contest to a charge of battery, which is less serious than corporal injury on a spouse.
Under the plea bargain, he is not expected to go to jail, but would be ordered to continue with counseling, TMZ reported.
Police launched an investigation into the Australian-educated actor after Grigorieva released recordings of expletive-ridden abusive telephone calls he allegedly made.
Gibson's career has struggled since his 2006 arrest for drunk driving, which exploded into a major scandal because of anti-Semitic remarks he made to a highway patrol officer.
In that case, he was sentenced to three years probation and fined $1,300, after undergoing alcohol rehabilitation.
