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Chris Brown facing four years in jail for misdemeanor charges filed against him

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Chris Brown and then girlfriend Rihanna. (23836)
Chris Brown and then girlfriend Rihanna.

Prosecutors filed court papers today asking that singer Chris Brown’s probation for assaulting his then-girlfriend Rihanna be revoked in response to misdemeanor charges filed against him in connection with a minor traffic accident in the San Fernando Valley.

The R&B singer has vehemently denied any wrongdoing stemming from the May 21 traffic crash near Toluca Lake.

Brown, 24, was scheduled to appear in court this afternoon in downtown Los Angeles for an update hearing on his probation. He had been scheduled to be arraigned in Van Nuys on the misdemeanor charges, but that hearing was postponed to July 23 amid reports the singer had reached a financial settlement with the victim.

Regardless of the reported settlement, Deputy District Attorney Mary A. Murray filed a two-page document today asking that Brown’s probation in the Rihanna assault be revoked based on the charges filed against him for the traffic crash.

A revocation of his probation could land Brown behind bars for as long as four years.

Brown allegedly rear-ended a Mercedes with his Range Rover near Toluca Lake on May 21. The singer stopped at the scene and exchanged information with the other driver, but he allegedly gave the other driver false insurance information, leading to a hit-and-run charge. He was also charged with driving without a valid license.

Brown, however, insisted on his Twitter page that he did nothing wrong.

“I did everything I was suppose to do during the so-called hit n run,” Brown posted on Twitter today. “I provided the correct info. There were no injuries or damages. C’mon!!”

He added, “Love you Team Breezy. I hope people can actually see the truth.”

On the day the charges were filed, Brown wrote, “It’s not a hit and run if u get out (of) the car, exchange information.”

“I have a valid drivers license and I gave the woman the right info,” he wrote. “She saw cameras and wanted to make a scene. She contacted the cops thinking of a payday from Chris Brown when I followed the proper procedures,” he wrote.

The celebrity website TMZ.com reported that Brown had reached a financial settlement with the other driver — identified as Olga Gure-Kovalenko. The website reported that Gure-Kovalenko no longer wants Brown prosecuted, but the City Attorney’s Office had not yet decided whether to drop the misdemeanor charges.

Brown pleaded guilty in June 2009 to assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury, admitting that he assaulted Rihanna during an argument that began around 12:30 a.m. on Feb. 8, 2009, while they were in a rented Lamborghini after attending a pre-Grammy Awards party.

Brown was sentenced to five years probation, a yearlong domestic violence program, which he completed, and 180 days of community labor.

Prosecutors, however, filed papers earlier questioning whether Brown had completed  his community labor hours, citing “significant discrepancies” in reports about Brown’s work in his native Virginia. The discrepancies indicate “at best sloppy documentation and at worst fraudulent reporting,” according to the court papers.

But Brown’s attorney, Mark Geragos, filed papers rejecting the allegations, saying prosecutors “chose to ignore the actual evidence in an effort to find someone, anyone, to say he was not working.”

“They also chose to ignore their own reports from numerous people who not only saw him working, but saw him working tough manual labor,” Geragos wrote in his response, noting that he had received unsolicited reports from firefighters in Virginia attesting that “Mr. Brown’s ‘worked his ass off.’”

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