After hitting another car while attempting to park last month, Britney Spears was charged Friday (September 21) with misdemeanor hit and run causing property damage. She's also charged with driving without a valid license.
According to the Los Angeles City Attorney's office, the singer hit a parked car on or about August 6 in the San Fernando Valley without leaving a note for the driver of the other vehicle or filing a police report. The incident was caught on video (widely available on the Internet), in which Spears, driving a black convertible, hits a parked white station wagon.
"Uh-oh, I'm a brainiac," she tells the crowd of paparazzi photographers and videographers surrounding her. "Sorry about that. What do I do?" After parking her car, she gets out to examine her car, but not the one she hit. "Did I hurt my car?" she asks before examining the front end. "It's not bad." She's then videotaped walking away.
According to the California Vehicle Code, drivers are required to locate the owner of any damaged property or leave their information in a conspicuous place and inform local law enforcement of the incident. In the court papers filed Friday, the prosecution claims Spears "did willfully and unlawfully fail, neglect, and refuse" to do that.
The North Hollywood division of the Los Angeles police department then received a formal complaint from the victim on August 9, and then discovered that the Department of Motor Vehicles had no record of issuing a California driver's license to Spears - despite the wide array of photographs and video taken of the singer driving various cars throughout Southern California.
Spears faces a maximum of six months in jail and/or a $1,000 fine for each of the misdemeanor counts. Her arraignment is set for October 10. The singer recently suffered setbacks in her child-custody case.