newsmakers

newsmakers

Sheen’s ex-wife faces cocaine charges

ASPEN, Colo.

Charlie Sheen’s ex-wife has been charged in Colorado with possession and distribution of cocaine stemming from her arrest in Aspen.

Brooke Mueller was arrested by police Dec. 3 after a woman reported being assaulted at a nightclub.

Pitkin County chief deputy district attorney Arnold Mordkin said Friday that Mueller also has been charged with third-degree assault.

Both drug charges are felonies. Possession with intent to distribute is the most serious and carries a penalty of between four and 12 years. Conviction on the possession charge could result in up to 18 months behind bars.

Mueller has vowed to fight the charges.

Sheen and Mueller divorced last year after Sheen was arrested on suspicion of assaulting her in 2009. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault and completed his probation in 2010.

Judge denies bail for Jackson doctor

LOS ANGELES

A judge who presided over the trial of Michael Jackson’s doctor refused Friday to release him on bail, saying he would be a danger to any community where he might try to practice medicine.

Conrad Murray’s lawyer asked for his release pending appeal of his involuntary manslaughter conviction, but Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor said he saw little chance that Murray would prevail in getting his case overturned.

Pastor made it clear that his view of Murray had not softened since he gave him a tongue-lashing and the maximum four-year sentence in the superstar’s death. He suggested Murray hurt his own chances for freedom in a documentary interview broadcast after the trial saying use of the powerful anesthetic propofol in the home was appropriate.

Serbs shun Jolie’s directorial debut

BELGRADE, Serbia

Serb screenings of Angelina Jolie’s directorial debut have attracted just a handful of viewers, say local media — “more than the movie deserves,” one daily reported Friday.

“In the Land of Blood and Honey” — a drama set in the Bosnian war about a Serb soldier who finds his ex-lover, a Muslim woman, among sex slaves in a camp — has triggered mixed emotions in the postwar Balkans.

It received a standing ovation in the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo but has sparked outrage among Serbs, who have blasted the movie as propaganda designed to portray them as the 1992-95 Balkan war’s bad guys.

Tens of thousands of people were killed in the Bosnian war, which pitted the country’s Serbs against Muslims and Croats.

Serbs have been widely blamed for most of the atrocities in the conflict, which is considered as Europe’s worst bloodshed since World War II.

Associated Press