Chris Brown Pleads Guilty In D.C. Assault Case & Avoids More Jail Time

Chris Brown pleaded guilty Tuesday to an assault charge stemming from a fight that broke out last October outside the W hotel in downtown Washington, D.C., prosecutors said.

As part of the deal, the singer, 25, entered a guilty plea on a misdemeanor charge of simple assault in the nation’s capital and will face no additional jail time in Washington, prosecutors said.

The U.S. attorney’s office for the District of Columbia said prosecutors took into account that Brown had taken responsibility for his actions and had already served about 80 days in jail in Los Angeles for a probation violation.

Brown and his bodyguard, Christopher Hollosy, 36, got into an altercation with 20-year-old Parker Adams last October outside Brown’s tour bus.

Adams and prosecutors say Hollosy and Brown punched him after he tried to get into a picture with Brown. The Grammy winner and his bodyguard had said Adams was trying to get on the bus and that any punches thrown were in defense of Brown.

An attempted plea deal in the case fell apart earlier this summer, when Brown and prosecutors couldn’t agree on the details of what took place outside the Washington hotel.

Brown attorney Mark Geragos said at the time that prosecutors wanted Brown to agree to "a set of facts that just was not accurate according to Chris." Attorney Danny Onorato was with the singer at court Tuesday.

According to the plea deal signed by Brown, Adams was standing with two women he knew near the front of the hotel when the performer came outside. Adams' friends asked if they could take a picture with Brown and handed Hollosy a phone to take the picture.

But when Adams tried to get into the picture, an argument ensued, and Brown punched Adams.

Hollosy was found guilty in April of simple assault and is awaiting sentencing.

"As Chris Brown has now finally acknowledged, he punched a man in the face without provocation," U.S. Atty. Ronald C. Machen Jr. said in a statement. "No matter your status or celebrity, you will be held accountable for such conduct in our city."

The D.C. assault also got Brown in trouble back in L.A., where he served more than two months in jail for violating probation connected to his 2009 assault on his then-girlfriend, pop singer Rihanna.

Brown was released from L.A. County jail this past June, well shy of spending an actual year behind bars thanks to overcrowding measures and time served. The three months he spent in a court-ordered rehab program counted toward that sentence.

He is scheduled to be on probation for that charge until January of next year.

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