R&B Singer Chris Brown Expected to Take Plea Deal

A last-minute hearing was scheduled for Friday in D.C. Superior Court in which Brown was due to appear and plead guilty to misdemeanor assault charges that he punched a photograph-seeking fan in the face outside the W Hotel in downtown Washington in October 2013.

But Friday’s hearing was cancelled and rescheduled for Tuesday. Sources familiar with the case said Brown was unable to fly to Washington on Thursday night from California.

Bill Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, declined to comment on whether a plea deal exists, but did confirm the 25-year-old Grammy winning singer is scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday.

Brown rejected two previous plea deal offers.

At a hearing in June, Brown rejected a plea offer following two days of heavy negotiations between his attorneys and prosecutors. A trial date was then scheduled for Sept. 8. One of Brown’s attorneys, Mark J. Geragos, told the judge Brown rejected the plea deal because he did not agree with the details of the assault as outlined by the prosecutors. It remains unclear how the new plea deal differs from the June offer. Calls and e-mails to Geragos were not returned Friday.

In January, prosecutors also offered Brown a deal, which he rejected and agreed instead to go to trial. Brown’s trial has been delayed several times.

Prosecutors allege Brown, along with his friend and bodyguard, Christopher Hollosy, 35, struck Parker Adams, 25, of Beltsville, Md., after Adams tried to take a picture of himself with the entertainer outside the hotel on Oct. 27 following a party during Howard University’s homecoming festivities.

Following a two-day trial in April in which Adams and two other witnesses testified that both Brown and Hollosy struck him, Hollosy was found guilty. Brown was scheduled to go on trial later that month, but the trial was delayed. Brown and Hollosy are still subject to a $1.5 million civil lawsuit filed by Adams. Hollosy’s sentencing was delayed until November after his attorney notified a judge that there was “new evidence” in the case. Details of that evidence wasn’t made public.

Security at the courthouse, once again, is expected to be heightened because dozens of Brown’s fans are expected to show up, as they have at past hearings, hoping to catch a glimpse of the hip-hop singer.

Brown was in the news this week after music producer Marion “Suge” Knight was injured after being shot multiple times at a pre-MTV Music Awards party thrown by Brown last Sunday at a Los Angeles nightclub. The 49-year-old former Death Row Records chief executive was later released from hospital.

Brown served four months in a California jail this year after a judge there ruled Brown had violated the terms of his probation from his 2009 assault case on former girlfriend, pop singer Rihanna.