Chris Brown must stay locked up in the Los Angeles County jail for at least another week while his lawyer negotiates with the prosecutor about his probation violation, a judge said Thursday.
Brown attended a hearing Thursday wearing an orange jail suit, just hours after a cross-country trip from Washington to Los Angeles on the federal government’s “Con Air” inmate transport system.
Brown lawyer Mark Geragos and Assistant District Attorney Mary Murray agreed to hold talks over the next week concerning Brown possibly admitting that he violated his probation. If that happens, it will be announced at a hearing next Friday. Otherwise, the judge will set a date for a trial on his probation revocation.
Geragos said he would also file a motion to have Brown released from jail, which would be considered at the May 9 hearing.
Brown, who turns 25 next Monday, spent most of the past week traveling back to Los Angeles following a delay in the start of his trial on a misdemeanor assault charge in Washington.
U.S. Marshals, who took Brown from the Los Angeles County jail for extradition to Washington four weeks ago, handed him back to Los Angeles Sheriff’s deputies just hours before Thursday’s hearing, according to Deputy U.S. Marshal Laura Vegas.
Brown’s probation for the 2009 beating of ex-girlfriend Rihanna Fenty was revoked after his Washington arrest. He’s spent the past six weeks in custody and previous five months in court-ordered rehab.
The prosecutor said last week that she would “strenuously object” to Brown being released because it appears likely Brown will be found guilty of the assault charge in Washington. Assistant District Attorney Mary Murray argued the only change since Brown was jailed in March is that his case has “gotten worse.” The Washington judge who found his bodyguard guilty in the assault case also concluded that Brown was “the initial aggressor” in the incident, Murray said.
A Los Angeles judge refused a request last week to free the singer from custody so he could make his own way back from Washington.
He and bodyguard Christopher Hollosy were arrested on assault charges in Washington for allegedly beating a man who tried to take a photo of Brown last October.
The arrest led to a revocation of Brown’s probation, but he was allowed to enter a rehab program instead of going to jail. He was ordered to jail last month when he was kicked out of the rehab program for rules violations.
“I think it’s a little over the top to have him in custody on this misdemeanor when everybody saw the bodyguard’s trial and which was nothing more than a bloody nose,” Brown lawyer Mark Geragos told reporters in Washington last week. “And you have got the bodyguard who was convicted and who readily admitted he was the one who did the punching. So all of this is much ado about nothing.”
The delay in Brown’s Washington trial came after prosecutors refused to grant immunity to Hollosy so he could testify without jeopardizing his own case. On Monday, Hollosy was found guilty of assaulting a man on a Washington sidewalk before Brown’s trial was to begin in the case.
The prosecutors cited Hollosy’s refusal to talk to them about his testimony as a major reason for the decision not to grant immunity. Their motion also said they suspected he might lie in his testimony to help Brown.
