- Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office
LAST UPDATE ON THIS 5:30 pm: Bystanders cheered when Ditto was taken into custody, according to the full police report on the incident. Read it here [PDF].
ORIGINAL STORY: Beth Ditto has been convicted of disorderly conduct, following an incident this weekend where the Gossip singer drunkenly held up traffic on Mississippi Avenue, the Mercury has learned.
Ditto— after sending her lawyer to an arraignment on the charge yesterday—appeared in court to plea no contest this morning to the violation, according to court files. It’s unclear at this point how she was sentenced for the crime violation.
According to Deputy District Attorney Caroline Wong, Ditto had the option to complete community service in order to have the case dismissed. Or, she could simply accept fines, which are a minimum of $435. Wong said the case file is still in the court house, and that she did not know the exact outcome.
Ditto (legal name Mary Beth Patterson) was charged with disorderly conduct after being denied service at Bungalo Bar (formerly Casa Naranja, on N Mississippi). She walked out into the street, where she attracted the attention of police officers, who took her in and booked her with the charge of second degree disorderly conduct, a Class B misdemeanor. That charge was reduced to a violation— akin to a speeding ticket—at arraignment.
Eyewitnesses include another drinker at Bungalo who posted this account on Reddit.
Someone posting on Reddit does not qualify as an “eyewitness”, sorry.
Is it too early in 2013 to nominate posts for the “Mercury Non-Story of the Year” award?
I said it on WW, I’ll say it here: WHO CARES?
@Clifton Brooks: To answer your question, a lot of people seem to care. You might not have noticed it, but there’s been a half dozen blog posts, a reddit post, and a couple hundred comments across the various platforms. That’s not even getting in to Twitter or Facebook. So the answer is, “a lot of people care”.
Also, that was a dumb question and you should feel dumb for asking it.
It’s a bullshit story, sure. But it was kinda interesting to watch the two sides line up with their terrible arguments, which ranged from “LOL, SHE FAT” to “I love her, so there’s no way she could be a belligerent drunk!”
The Internet: making geniuses of us all.
Agreed. Covering this story once was too much. There are tons of artists, musicians, writers, gardeners, entrepreneurs in Portland, who are out there- MAKING STUFF. Show us them. Please don’t choose to be the rag that follows one semi celebrity around for their embarrassing moments.
I mean, I just don’t see a respectable journalism outfit like the Mercury going after tawdry celebrity news. How does that make sense?
Dash is right, Mercury! SHOW US THE GARDENERS!
@ Dash
Luckily for you we publish an entire newspaper every week documenting people MAKING STUFF. We also occasionally publish entertainment news. Now, stop thinking you know enough to tell us what to do.
Haha! Todd and Humphrey, you are absolutely right, I got absurdly preachy there. It was a knee-jerk reaction. I just couldn’t help but feel some empathy for her- I barely knew her name before this and now I see her mugshot every time I check Blogtown.
Graham, I think that YOU and a select hand full of post-nerds/hipsters care way too much. The fact is, I’ve never heard of this woman of her band until TODAY.
Also, your face is dumb and you should feel dumb for having it and your mother should feel dumb for helping to create it.
if she chooses to go to community court, she’ll get the case dismissed in exchange for 8 hours of community service… might be inconvenient, though.
It would’ve been funnier if she wandered into the street and started yelling BUSH BUSH BUSH.