The police report on Justin Timberlake's June 18 arrest details why officers thought the singer shouldn't be behind the wheel of a car.
While Justin Timberlake and his attorney have insisted that the pop star was not intoxicated when he was pulled over by police in the Hamptons, the report by the arresting officer describes a motorist who failed a series of sobriety tests and who had trouble speaking or staying steady on his feet.
Timberlake, who pleaded not guilty last week to driving while intoxicated, was arrested on June 18 in the upscale community of Sag Harbor on Long Island. He had been hanging out with friends at the American Hotel, a popular Hamptons hotspot, where he allegedly was “wasted” and seen drinking, including downing another patron’s cocktail, the New York Post reported.
Rookie officer Michael Arkinson spotted Timberlake driving away from the hotel shortly after midnight and allegedly witnessed him blow through a stop sign and swerve into another lane, the Daily Mail reported.
Arkinson’s handwritten notes appear to show that the officer followed procedure to determine that Timberlake displayed numerous signs of intoxication, reported the Daily Mail, which obtained a copy of the singer’s arrest report. For example, Timberlake was swaying on his feet and wasn’t able to stay balanced, the report
The report stated Timberlake was alone in the car when Arkinson pulled him over and was observed to have “(b)loodshot and glassy eyes, odor of alcoholic beverage emanating from breath, inability to divide attention, unsteady afoot…”
The officer quoted the singer as saying: “I had one martini and I followed my friends home.” But Atkinson noted that Timberlake was “unable to focus on speaking while looking for (the) vehicle registration.”
Timberlake refused to take a breathalyzer test, a breath test measures how much alcohol is in the air one breathes out. The singer was within his right to refuse the test but the refusal is considered a traffic infraction that triggers an automatic one-year license suspension — which is what happened to Timberlake at a virtual court hearing last week.
During the arrest, it’s also been reported that the young officer may not have realized that he was arresting a world-famous entertainmer. A source told Page Six that Timberlake at one point said, “This is going to ruin the tour.” When the officer asked, “What tour?” Timberlake had to explain, “the world tour,” referring to his Forget Tomorrow World Tour, which has recently taken him to Europe.
During the field sobriety test, Timberlake was asked to take nine steps in a straight line, walking heel to toe, then turning and repeating the nine steps back. During the test, Timberlake was “very unbalanced” and was “unable to follow instructions correctly.”
Timberlake was next asked to raise one foot slightly off the ground and keep it raised for 30 seconds without moving. Arkinson reported that Timberlake swayed while doing the test, needed to use his arms to keep his balance, and put the foot down before the required 30 seconds had lapsed.
That’s when the officer placed Timberlake under arrest, handcuffed him, and put them in the backseat of the squad car to drive him back to the police station. There, Arkinson took inventory of Timberlake’s property, which included a Rolex watch, a black vape pen, a gold ring, a wallet which contained three $100 bills, one $5 bill, and one single.
At the station, Timberlake also refused to take a second breath test, which could be admissible as evidence. But again, Timberlake refused, saying, “No, I’m not doing a chemical test.”
When Timberlake was read his Miranda rights, he told Arkinson that he understood them and said he wouldn’t speak anymore without an attorney. The singer spent the rest of the night in the police station, was arraigned in court the next morning, then released on his own recognizance.
Prosecutors charged Timberlake with a misdemeanor DWI charge based on the officer’s observations of the singer during his field sobriety test. Timberlake also was cited for running a stop sign and for failing to keep in his traffic lane.
Timberlake’s attorney, Edward Burke Jr., told reporters after a July 26 that his client was not intoxicated and should not have been arrested for the DWI charge. He asserted that police “made a number of very significant errors in this case.”
Timberlake may have a couple witnesses to back up his claim that he wasn’t drunk, Page Six reported. First, the bartender at the American Hotel told Page Six that he only saw the singer consume one martini. Second, police let one of the singer’s friends, who had been drinking with him at the hotel, drive his BMW rental car back to her house, TMZ reported.
The female friend and her husband were driving ahead of Timberlake and leading him back to their home. She stopped when Timberlake was arrested and approached the officers to ask, “Are you going to arrest Justin Timberlake?”
Sources told Page Six that the woman offered to drive Timberlake to her home, where the pop star was planning to spend the night. Police clearly did not take the woman up on the offer and placed Timberlake under arrest.
The “twist” is that police took the woman up on her other offer to drive Timberlake’s rental car back to her house, giving that he was going to jail, TMZ reported. The cops said OK, even though sources said it should have been apparent that she, too, had been drinking because she arrived at the American Hotel two hours before Timberlake. Yet, the police allowed her to drive away from the scene.
An Austin, Texas-based attorney said that the friend’s testimony could help Timberlake’s defense. She could say, “Hey, I drank the same amount and I was fine and I got home safe,” trial attorney Tray Grober said in a statement shared with this news organization.
“If the police thought that she was okay to drive, having consumed the same amount of alcohol, that is a good argument and that will go a long way to Justin Timberlake’s defense establishing reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors,” Grober added.
