‘The Mentalist’ star Simon Baker admits drinking and driving in Australia
MULLUMBIMBY, Australia — Actor and director Simon Baker, best known for his role as Patrick Jane in the CBS drama series “The Mentalist,” avoided a conviction Wednesday after pleading guilty to a charge of driving under the influence of alcohol near his rural home in Australia.
The 55-year-old appeared in the Mullumbimby Local Court in New South Wales state for sentencing after pleading guilty the week before to a charge of driving with a blood-alcohol concentration exceeding the legal limit of 0.05%.
Baker acted alongside Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway in the Oscar-nominated 2006 film “The Devil Wears Prada” before starring for eight years as a former professional psychic who became a California Bureau of Investigation consultant on “The Mentalist.”
Magistrate Kathy Crittenden accepted that Baker was remorseful and unlikely to drive after drinking again. She released him on a nine-month good behavior bond with no conviction recorded. Australian judges have discretion to not record a conviction against first-time offenders under exceptional circumstances.
Federal authorities have depicted a scheme in which medical professionals and street dealers exploited the “Friends” actor, who had been open about his years-long struggle with addiction, to enrich themselves.
Police reported seeing Baker’s Tesla driving erratically in the fashionable Byron Bay region at 2:11 a.m. July 20.
That was hours after a faulty software update issued by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike created worldwide technological havoc, disrupting airlines, hospitals, government offices and financial systems. Crittenden said the outage knocked police systems offline and an electronic breath test could not be completed on Baker.
She said police resorted to an “old-fashioned sobriety test.”
Police reported that Baker was unsteady on his feet and smelled of alcohol. He told police he had consumed four glasses of wine over dinner since 6 p.m., roughly eight hours prior. He was alone in the car.
Comic Eric André accuses officers at the Melbourne Airport of racial profiling, saying them pulled him aside and had him ‘sniffed thoroughly’ by a drug-detecting dog.
Baker was “very polite and cooperative” and “extremely remorseful for his actions,” Crittenden said. Baker had since completed a traffic offenders’ rehabilitation program, the court was told.
Crittenden said four character references were tendered to the court about Baker’s community contributions, significant remorse and attesting to his conduct being out of character.
“The court has little difficulty in finding that Mr. Baker is remorseful for his offending and it is unlikely he will offend again,” she said.
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