SINGER George Michael was yesterday fined #500 and ordered to undergo sex counselling after being convicted of a lewd act in a Los Angeles lavatory. His lawyer Ira Reiner entered a ''no contest'' plea on Michael's behalf before a California judge.
He said the judgment meant Michael must seek expert help to avoid a repetition of last month's arrest. The 34-year-old musician, arrested by undercover vice officers in a Beverly Hills park toilet after exposing himself to a detective and carrying out a solo sex act, was also sentenced to 80 hours of community service and put on two years' informal probation.
Michael, whose close Brazilian friend Anselmo Feleppa died from Aids in 1993, could carry out the order by working for education groups on the disease, according to his lawyer.
Mr Reiner, former top prosecutor in LA County, said: ''George will have to undergo counselling for five hours in relation to the offence of which he has been convicted. He can choose the counsellor and will have to talk about what happened, obviously with the aim that he should not commit the same offence again.
''We will be looking at how the community service order is carried out but Mr Michael has obviously close involvement with Aids charity and education work. I think he could well do something in that direction.''
Fours days after his arrest, Michael, who was excused from appearing before Judge Charles Rubin at the Beverly Hills Municipal Court for yesterday's hearing, went on American television to acknowledge that he was homosexual.
He told CNN he was embarrassed by his arrest in the Will Rogers Memorial Park on April 7, saying: ''I won't even say it was the first time it's happened.''
Michael, who was charged with an offence of committing a lewd act under his real name of Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, had faced a maximum sentence of six months imprisonment and a $1000 fine. He was also banned from the Will Rogers Park, which stands opposite the Beverly Hills Hotel on Sunset Boulevard.
Mr Reiner dismissed any suggestion the singer, whose hits include I Want Your Sex and Faith, had been dealt with leniently. He said: ''It was the same sentence received for all cases of this nature. It was an expected and fair outcome.''
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