Bobby Brown was sentenced to seventy-five days in jail on Monday for charges stemming from probation violations. The R&B bad boy had been in the Fort Lauderdale slammer since May 22 following a May 10 arrest at Newark Airport in New Jersey, when he and wife Whitney Houston returned to the U.S. from the Bahamas.

Brown's arrest came nearly a year after a warrant was issued after a failed drug test broke his probation from a 1996 drunken driving incident. The thirty-three-year-old Brown appeared in court with members of his family (though Houston was absent) and plead guilty to charges of reporting late to his probation officer and refusal to take a urine test, both terms of his probation. The greater charge of violating his probation was dismissed by Judge Leonard Feiner, who had ordered Brown locked up as a flight risk in May. Feiner accused Brown of thumbing his nose "at the system" and could have given the singer as many as ninety days in prison.

Brown's sentence will take him from Broward County Jail to the Joseph Conte Center, a medium security prison, where he will spend the next thirty-six days. His previous thirty-nine days in jail are included in his sentence. "I have a disease," Brown said according to the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. "I am an addict. I am an alcoholic. Hopefully I can get back to what I do best, dancing and singing."

ANDREW DANSBY
(June 13, 2000)