Pop singer Justin Bieber charged with assault in Canada

[September 03, 2014]  By Allison Martell

TORONTO (Reuters) - Pop star Justin Bieber was arrested and charged with assault and dangerous driving over the weekend after an incident near a small Canadian town, police said on Tuesday, in a case that could complicate the singer's probation in Los Angeles.

The charges came after two drivers got into a "physical altercation" on Friday, Perth County Ontario Provincial Police said in a release.

A minivan and an all-terrain vehicle had collided near Stratford, Ontario, the town where Bieber grew up.

Bieber, 20, was visiting the Canadian province with Selena Gomez, the pop singer and former Disney TV star. The two have been in a four-year, on-and-off relationship.

"Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez' peaceful retreat in Stratford this weekend was unfortunately disrupted by the unwelcome presence of paparazzi," Bieber's lawyer, Brian Greenspan, said in an emailed statement.

"This has regrettably resulted in charges of dangerous driving and assault."

Bieber, whose songs include the hits "Boyfriend" and "Beauty and a Beat," has been a favorite paparazzi target and has attracted more attention lately for his legal run-ins than his chart-toppers.

The singer's latest arrest could add to his legal woes in Los Angeles, where Bieber is on probation after pleading no contest in July to misdemeanor vandalism for pelting a neighbor's home with eggs.

Arrests, even if abroad, generally trigger an inquiry into a possible probation violation, said Reaver Bingham, the deputy chief of field services at the Los Angeles County Probation Department.

Bingham declined to say whether the department was investigating Bieber's latest arrest, citing privacy laws.

This year, R&B singer Chris Brown spent 80 days in a Los Angeles jail after admitting to a probation violation following a 2013 arrest in Washington for punching a fan. Brown pleaded guilty on Tuesday to misdemeanor assault in that case.

Bieber's arrest in Canada came weeks after he pleaded guilty to careless driving and resisting an officer without violence in Florida, part of a deal to resolve allegations he was caught drag racing in a Lamborghini under the influence of drugs and alcohol.

In January, he was charged with assaulting a limousine driver in Toronto. The case is ongoing.

(Additional reporting by Eric Kelsey in Los Angeles; Editing by Jeffrey Hodgson, Andrew Hay, Piya Sinha-Roy and Jonathan Oatis)

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