Boy George Gets Off

Mon., Jun. 26, 2006 8:45 AM PDT by Josh Grossberg

Boy George better get used to the idea of raking leaves, otherwise he might be meeting a whole new kind of culture club behind bars.

The "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?" singer was severely scolded Monday by a Manhattan Criminal Court judge for failing to abide by the terms of a plea deal he cut with prosecutors to resolve charges stemming from a drug bust last fall.

George was a no-show at a hearing two weeks ago, prompting Judge Anthony Ferrara to issue an arrest warrant. Ferrara said he would hold off locking up the flamboyant popster until he explained why he hadn't met the conditions of his probation--George ducked community service and didn't fork over a $1,000 fine--and skipped the court date.

During Monday's brief court appearance, the 45-year-old singer, whose full name is George O'Dowd, did not speak but hung his head as the judge gave him a tongue-lashing.

"This is a simple matter," Ferrara said. "Five days of community service. It's up to you as to whether it will be an exercise in humiliation or an exercise in humility. Your choice."

The judge's rebuke came after defense attorney Louis Freeman claimed George decided to forgo the usual regimen of court-mandated community service, such as street sweeping and park cleaning, because of the "humiliation" it would bring and the possibility it would "turn into a media circus." Instead, Freeman explained, George preferred to fulfill his obligation by deejaying an HIV/AIDS benefit.

But the judge wasn't picking up what Freeman was laying down.

"If you do community service, you go out that door," Ferrara told the '80s icon, pointing to the exit. "But I'm going to make you a promise. If you don't do this community service, you go through the back door"--i.e., to jail.

"He'll probably be raking leaves in Central Park, or something like that," Freeman told reporters, according to the Associated Press. The attorney said his client wanted to do five consecutive days of community service and then get back to Europe so he wouldn't miss any scheduled appearances.

Asked by the Associated Press what he was going to do to satisfy his sentence, the singer joked "I'm going to be teaching basketball in Harlem."

Be it raking or hoops the judge gave George until Aug. 28 to complete the community service, which will be overseen by the city's sanitation department.

George was arrested Oct. 7 after police responded to a report of a burglary at the singer's Big Apple apartment and discovered 13 plastic bags of cocaine. The Culture Club crooner originally faced one felony count of criminal possession of a controlled substance, a charge that could have netted him up to 15 years in prison.

He vigorously denied wrongdoing, arguing that one of his many visitors must have left the drugs without the singer's consent or knowledge.

By March, however, the androgynous entertainer decided to agree to a plea bargain with the Manhattan District Attorney's office. He was granted a conditional discharge for pleading guilty to a lesser charge of third-degree false reporting of an incident.

The deal allowed him to avoid jail time. Ferrara in turn sentenced George to five days of community service, slapped him with the modest $1,000 penalty and ordered him to enter a drug rehab clinic in his native England.

The former chart-topper is no stranger to drug problems.

In 1986, George was convicted in Great Britain of heroin possession stemming from an incident in which two friends overdosed. He did a stint in rehab, but the fallout led to the breakup of Culture Club, the radio-friendly '80s band that sold more than 20 million albums worldwide on the strength of hits like "Karma Chameleon," "I'll Tumble 4 Ya."