Justin Timberlake’s lawyer says pop singer wasn’t intoxicated, argues DUI charges should be dropped
Justin Timberlake The pop singer’s lawyer said Friday that he was not drunk during a traffic stop last month as he tries to get his sentence charge of driving under the influence rejected in the Hamptons in New York, citing errors in documents filed by police.
But Sag Harbor Village Judge Carl Irace ordered Timberlake to be summoned again on August 2 with the corrected documents.
He also agreed to allow the former NSYNC member, who is currently on tour in Europe, to attend the proceedings virtually. Timberlake was not present at Friday’s hearing after canceling his appearance in advance.
Timberlake’s attorney, Edward Burke, said after the hearing that police made “very significant mistakes” and expects the charges to be dropped. He also maintained that Timberlake was not driving drunk.
“He was not drunk,” Burke told reporters outside the court. “I’ll say it again. Justin Timberlake was not drunk.”
The office of Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney, which is prosecuting the case, described the paperwork issue as a “ministerial error” and said an amended charging document was filed on July 2.
“The facts and circumstances of the case have not changed or amended,” spokeswoman Emily O’Neil said in an email.
Burke indicated in a follow-up statement that there were other problems with the arrest documents, but did not elaborate.
“The police made some very significant mistakes in this case,” he said. “Today in court you heard the prosecutor try to correct one of those mistakes. But that is just one of them and there are many more. Sometimes the police make mistakes and this is just one of those cases.”
Timberlake has respect for law enforcement and the legal process and cooperated with officers and treated them with respect during his arrest last month, Burke added.
Tierney’s office declined to comment on Burke’s comments.
“We stand ready to bring the underlying facts of this case to court, rather than to the press,” O’Neil said.
Timberlake was charged with the offense on June 18 after police said he ignored a stop sign and veered out of his lane in Sag Harbor, a former whaling village mentioned in Herman Melville’s classic novel “Moby-Dick” and located in the Hamptons, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) east of New York City.
The boy band singer, now a solo artist and actor, was driving a 2025 BMW around 12:30 a.m. when an officer pulled him over and determined he was intoxicated, according to a court document.
“His eyes were bloodshot and glassy, his breath smelled strongly of alcohol, he had trouble paying attention, his speech was slower, he was unsteady on his feet, and he scored poorly on all standardized field sobriety tests,” court documents said.
Timberlake, 43, told the officer at the time that he had drunk one martini and followed some friends home, the documents said. After he was arrested and taken to a police station in nearby East Hampton, he refused a breath test.
The 10-time Grammy winner got his start performing as a young Disney Mouseketeer, rose to fame as a member of the boy band NSYNC and launched a solo recording career in the early 2000s.
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Karen Matthews, an Associated Press reporter in New York, contributed to this story.