Rose McGowan pleaded no contest in Virginia on Monday to a misdemeanor charge of possessing a controlled substance in exchange for paying a fine and no jail time.
The deal, confirmed by her attorney, came after police said a wallet she left behind on a plane at Washington Dulles International Airport in 2017 tested positive for cocaine. The actor and outspoken critic of disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein was originally charged with felony possession and had been facing a year in prison if found guilty of that charge. Instead, she was given a 12-month suspended sentence Monday and agreed to pay a $2,500 fine, WTOP reported.
“Ms. McGowan has accepted this agreement in order to spare her family, her friends, and her supporters the emotional strain of a criminal trial,” her attorney, James W. Hundley, said in a statement. “The agreement brings this ordeal to an end and allows her to focus all of her energy on what matters most to her — creating a better world.”
On Twitter Monday, McGowan said: “Sometimes you have to lose the battle to win the war.”
McGowan originally denied the drugs were hers and said they could have been planted. In a memo to the court shortly after her arrest, her attorney argued there was a wide gap of time between when McGowan couldn’t find her wallet and when it was located, which means other people could have had access to it.
McGowan told the New Yorker last year that while was she has used drugs in the past and owns stock in a marijuana company, she had “no interest in cocaine,” and that she would plead not guilty.
Her arrest came after McGowan and other women went public with allegations of assault against Weinstein in two bombshell stories published by the New York Times and the New Yorker. Since then, McGowan has remained a vocal advocate of the #MeToo movement.