Justin Timberlake made a brief, virtual appearance in a Sag Harbor, N.Y., courtroom on Friday morning (Aug. 2), where he entered a not guilty plea in connection with his June arrest for DWI, a spokesperson for the singer confirmed to Billboard.
According to CNN, Timberlake, 43, attended the arraignment virtually and spoke twice during the hearing, answering “yes” to questions from Sag Harbor Village Justice Carl Irace. The procedural hearing included Irace suspending the Grammy winner’s driving privileges in the state of New York, and admonishing Timberlake’s attorney, Edward Burke, for comments the lawyer has made outside the courtroom to the media, encouraging Burke to be careful about speaking to the press in the future.
During a hearing in July, Burke disputed the claim that Timberlake was intoxicated and said his client should never have been arrested, saying, “the police made a number of very significant errors in this case.” CNN reported that Burke once again claimed that the singer was not intoxicated at the time of his arrest during Friday’s court appearance.
Timberlake was arrest on suspicion of driving while intoxicated in Sag Harbor on June 17 and arraigned the following day on one count of “driving while intoxicated.” According to a statement from the Sag Harbor PD at the time, the singer was observed “operating a 2025 BMW southbound on Madison Street, failing to stop at a duly posted stop sign and failing to maintain his lane of travel.”
A police report filed by the arresting officer added, “It was ascertained that the defendant was operating said vehicle in an intoxicated condition in that his eyes were bloodshot and glassy, a strong odor 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 standardized field sobriety tests.”
Officer Michael Arkinson noted that the 10-time Grammy winner told him during the arrest, “I had one martini and I followed my friends home.” Burke issued a statement two days later promising to “vigorously” defend the pop star, whose Tennessee driver’s license was suspended in the state of New York; Burke said that is standard procedure in DWI cases.
Timberlake is not required to attend the next hearing in the case on Aug. 9, and a spokesperson for Burke told Billboard the attorney had no further comment at press time. The singer is currently on the European leg of his Forget Tomorrow World Tour, with the first of two shows at Antwerp’s Sportpaleis scheduled for Saturday night (Aug. 3).
