Boy George Sentenced to 15 Months in Prison

BY Brock ThiessenPublished Jan 16, 2009

Pop star Boy George has been sentenced to 15 months in jail after being convicted of falsely imprisoning a male escort. Tried under his real name George O'Dowd, the 47-year-old was handed down his sentence today (January 16) by a London court, which found him guilty of "gratuitous violence," Associated Press reports.

The former Culture Club singer was convicted in December of handcuffing Norwegian escort Audun Carlsen to a wall at the celebrity's east London home in April 2007, where prosecutors said Carlsen was held for under an hour. O'Dowd denied the charge, saying he held Carlsen to figure out whether his computer had been tampered with.

The two met on a gay social networking site and the court was told O'Dowd swung at Carlsen with a metal chain, leading the escort to eventually flee the apartment after a naked photo shoot.

O'Dowd's lawyer said his client and the escort had both behaved like "drug-crazed idiots," AP reports.

"This defendant is a kind and generous man who is particularly mindful of others' needs," O'Dowd's lawyer told the court. "He is the antithesis of the haughty bullying star. He was not himself when addled by the habitual and relatively long-lasting using of illegal drugs."

O'Dowd's lawyer told reporters it was likely that the star would only spend six or seven months behind bars and did not say whether O'Dowd was planning to launch an appeal.

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