The Stone Temple Pilots frontman pleaded guilty Wednesday to domestic battery as part of a plea bargain to avoid jail time stemming from his November arrest for assaulting his wife during an argument at a Las Vegas hotel.
The agreement between Weiland's attorney, David Chesnoff, and Clark County Deputy District Attorney Abby Silver was approved by a judge in Las Vegas Justice Court. In exchange for the guilty plea, Chesnoff says the STP singer has to stay out of trouble for six months and complete 26 counseling sessions in order for his record to be wiped clean.
"It was a very defensible situation, but it would've involved bringing his wife to court, which [Weiland] wanted to avoid," Chesnoff says. "We worked out a resolution where he would agree to go to some counseling sessions for domestic abuse."
Weiland was arrested at the Hard Rock Hotel on November 19 after pushing his wife up against a wall and stepping on her when she allegedly tried to keep him from leaving the hotel room to pick up a prescription. Following the scuffle, Mary Weiland contacted hotel security, who then called police and had the singer taken into custody.
Weiland, who spent 12 hours behind bars and posted $3,000 bail, was booked on one count of misdemeanor battery/domestic violence and was later released in time for his STP show later that night.
His wife told police that she and Weiland got into an argument over prescription pills he had been taking after tearing cartilage in his knee. She said she feared that her husband, who has a history of battling heroin addition, might end up abusing the pills, so she blocked him from leaving the hotel room when the two got into their struggle.
This isn't the first time Weiland's drug problems have put a kink in his personal life and career. After the smashing success of STP's sophomore disc, Purple, in 1995, the singer was busted in Los Angeles for possession of cocaine and heroin. After several trips in and out of rehab for heroin addiction, Weiland and the band briefly broke up.
While the other members formed their own band, Talk Show with singer Dave Coutts, Weiland went solo and released 1998's 12 Bar Blues. STP later regrouped and released their fourth album, No. 4, when Weiland was sentenced to a year in a Los Angeles County Jail for violating his probation stemming from an earlier conviction for heroin possession.
After getting out, a newly sober Weiland and STP scored a radio-friendly hit with "Sour Girl" and once again hit the road. At the time of this arrest, the band was in Vegas performing in support of their latest album, Shangri-La Dee Da, which was released this summer and has since received only a tepid response.