It may sometimes seem like celebrities can get away with whatever they want, but for every dozen or so guys like Roman Polanski who are completely and utterly above the law, there are one or two celebrities who actually get punished when they do something wrong. Surprisingly, Into The Wild star Emile Hirsch is one such celebrity. Well, barely.
Earlier this year, Hirsch was charged with felony assault after he attacked a movie studio executive at a party during Sundance—though “attacked” doesn’t really paint enough of a picture. Hirsch was reportedly visibly drunk, and when this woman decided to walk away from him after he started yelling at her for being “a rich kid” who didn’t deserve to be at Sundance, he dragged her across a table, jumped on her chest, and started choking her. She said that she felt like the front and back of her throat were touching, and then she started to black out.
Hirsch’s charge came with a maximum penalty of five years in prison, and he chose to enter a guilty plea in court today. As reported by Deadline, he told the judge that there is “no excuse” for what he did, and that it was “wrong” and “reckless” to try and choke a woman to death. (Also, he was wearing jeans and a blazer in court, so you know he took this very seriously.) The judge agreed that there was no excuse for Hirsch’s actions, so she decided to give him what is apparently “a significant punishment” for a famous person who dragged a woman across a table and choked her in the middle of a party: 15 days in jail, 90 days probation, 50 hours of community service, and a whopping $4,750 fine. He’ll also have to pay some money to the woman he choked, so hopefully he actually has some left over after scraping together what he can for that fine.