Timberlake reaches plea deal in drink driving case: AP

Justin Timberlake is scheduled to enter a new plea on Friday in his drunken driving case in New York’s Hamptons, prosecutors say.

Details of the plea weren’t disclosed, but a person with knowledge of the deal said Timberlake has agreed to plead guilty to a less serious offence than the original charge of driving while intoxicated.

The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly about the case.

Timberlake’s lawyer, Edward Burke, declined to comment.

The US pop singer is set to appear in person on Friday in Sag Harbor Village Court to enter a plea, Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney’s office confirmed.

Timberlake was arrested in the village of Sag Harbor, on the eastern end of Long Island, on June 18 after police said he ran a stop sign in the village centre, veered out of his lane and got out of his BMW smelling of alcohol. The 43-year-old Tennessee native pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanour drunken driving charge.

At a hearing last month, a judge suspended Timberlake’s right to drive in New York.

His lawyer, Burke, has maintained that Timberlake was not drunk and that the case should be dropped.

Timberlake was pulled over after leaving a Sag Harbor hotel around 12.30am, according to police.

“His eyes were bloodshot and glassy, a strong odour of an alcoholic beverage was emanating from his breath, he was unable to divide attention, he had slowed speech, he was unsteady afoot and he performed poorly on all standardised field sobriety tests,” police said in a court filing.

Timberlake told the officer he had had one martini and was following some friends home, according to police. He was arrested and spent the night in custody at a police station.

The boy band singer-turned-solo star and actor’s agent and other representatives didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment Wednesday.

A 10-time Grammy winner, Timberlake began performing as a young Disney Mouseketeer, rose to fame as part of the boy band NSYNC and embarked on a solo recording career in the early 2000s.

Sag Harbor is a one-time whaling village mentioned in Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick that’s nestled amid the Hamptons, around 160km east of New York City.