Mel Gibson to Plead Guilty to Battery of Ex Oksana Grigorieva

Just because you get caught on tape threatening to beat up a woman, followed by the same woman claiming she was beat up by you, doesn't mean that you should be prosecuted or put to jail.

At least, that seems to be what the district attorney is saying in the Mel Gibson, Oksana Grigorieva case, Reuters reports.

The Los Angeles district attorney has struck a deal with Mel Gibson, where he will seek counseling instead of prison. Under the deal, where Gibson will plead no contest to battery, there will be no jail time in the alleged Mel Gibson battery, Reuters reports. No contest has the same legal effect in a criminal case as a guilty plea.

The actor decided to throw in the towel in the Mel Gibson, Oksana Grigorieva case of alleged domestic abuse to avoid a drawn-out court battle which would have strained his family, TMZ reported.

"Mel's priority throughout all of this has been that the best interests of his young daughter Lucia and the rest of his children be put first ... with only that in mind that he asked me to approach the District Attorney ... sometimes justice can come for a client at too high a personal price," Gibson's attorney Blair Berk said in a statement. "That is particularly so for Mel, whose right to due process can only be exercised in this case with an enormous media circus attached."

If everything goes the way it sound as if it's headed, the once-heated dispute of the Mel Gibson, Oksana battery case, will very quietly cool off and fade away.

Related Resources:

• Mel Gibson Investigation File Turned Over to Prosecutors (FindLaw's Celebrity Justice)
• Mel Gibson / Oksana Grigorieva Restraining Order Creates Confusion (FindLaw's Celebrity Justice)
• The Mel Gibson Tapes: Admissible in Court? (FindLaw's Celebrity Justice)