Mindy McCready Takes it Back

Tue., Aug. 22, 2006 4:30 PM PDT by Sarah Hall

Could Mindy McCready really be this lucky?

The legally challenged country singer, who had pleaded guilty to violating her probation on a drug charge by driving with a suspended license and leaving the state of Tennessee without permission, petitioned to withdraw her plea Tuesday, claiming that she has uncovered new evidence in her case.

McCready was pulled over for speeding in May 2005 and subsequently charged with drunk driving and driving with a suspended license, thereby earning her first probation violation.

Though a Nashville jury acquitted her on the DUI charge last month, she was convicted on the suspended license charge. On Tuesday, she had been scheduled to learn whether she would be going to jail for violating her probation.

However, according to her lawyer, Lee Dyer, McCready's relatives in Florida recently came across a document showing that her license had been reinstated the very day before she was arrested in May 2005. Dyer told the court he only received the info Monday night.

"I said when I was pulled over that my license was not suspended, and I was correct," McCready told reporters after Tuesday's hearing.

McCready is due to be sentenced next month on the driving charge and Dyer said he planned to seek a new trial after that.

"It's going to be our position that her license was not truly suspended although the records in the Department of Safety show that it was," Dryer told reporters.

Judge Jeff Bivins said he would wait to rule on the probation violation case until the Nashville court ruled on the license matter.

Still at issue, however, is the singer's second probation violation, which occurred when she left Tennessee and traveled to Florida without the go-ahead from her parole officer. The ill-advised trip landed squarely in the spotlight after she attempted to commit suicide in a Tampa-area hotel.

According to Dyer, the out-of-state trip was simply a miscommunication between McCready and her probation officer.

It's been a rough couple of years for the struggling songbird, who scored a number one hit with 1996's "Guys Do It All the Time."

Just days after her DUI arrest, she was beaten and almost choked to death by her ex-boyfriend, William McKnight, who later pleaded guilty to domestic assault and was sentenced to serve 30 days in jail.

In September 2005, McCready attempted suicide a second time while pregnant with McKnight's child. Fortunately, she survived, as did her son, who was born in March.

The singer sued McKnight for $3 million in June, claiming his attack on her put her career into a downward spiral from which she could not recover.