Authorities dropped charges for drunk and reckless driving to Bruce Springsteen on Wednesday after an incident in November, as they admitted that the level of alcohol on the rocker was so low that he did not deserve the charges.
Springsteen pleaded guilty to a third charge of consuming alcohol in a restricted area, the National Gateway Recreation Area. Popularly known as Sandy Hook, it is a park on a peninsula in the Atlantic Ocean overlooking the skyscrapers of New York.
In front of a judge and more than 100 spectators at a video conference, Springsteen sat down next to attorney Mitchell Ansell and admitted he knew it was illegal to consume alcohol in the park.
“I took two small‘ shots ’of tequila,” Springsteen said when answering questions from an assistant prosecutor. The case went to federal court because the birth is considered federal property.
Magistrate Anthony Mautone fined Springsteen $ 500 for this misdemeanor plus $ 40 in court fees.
“I think I can pay this immediately to your lordship,” Springsteen told Mautone.
In a written statement Ansell said Springsteen “is pleased with the outcome” of the court hearing.
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According to a document on the probable cause, written by police at the time of the incident, Springsteen told a police officer that he had taken two “shots,” or small sips known in Mexico (from where is tequila) like horses, in the previous 20 minutes. But he did not want to take a preliminary breathalyzer test before he was arrested. Mautone said Wednesday that preliminary evidence is not a requirement and is not admissible in court.
When he was given a breath test at the park ranger station, Springsteen’s blood alcohol level was 0.02, a quarter of the legal limit in New Jersey, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Police wrote they saw Springsteen take a sip of tequila and then get on the motorcycle. The officer wrote that the rocker “smelled strongly of alcohol” on Nov. 14 “and had teary eyes,” and that there was a bottle of Tequila Pattern that was “completely empty.”
The report described Springsteen as “visibly swinging back and forth” during an on-site sobriety test and said he refused to take an initial blood alcohol test.
Following the news of the arrest Jeep paused a commercial that showed up at the Super Bowl with Springsteen in Kansas urging people to find concord. Jeep said it would pause the commercial “until the actual facts are established.”
Springsteen performed on Jan. 20 as part of President Joe Biden’s inauguration ceremony performing “Land of Hope and Dreams” in front of the Lincoln Memorial.