Rose McGowan has reached a plea deal in a drug case against her, an attorney for the actress told TheWrap on Wednesday.
Attorney Jim Hundley said that McGowan’s plea agreement calls for the actress and activist to plead no contest to a lesser charge of possession of a controlled substance, a misdemeanor.
McGowan had been charged with felony cocaine possession, according to the Associated Press.
The actress will enter the plea when she appears in court Jan. 15, and it will be recommended by prosecutors that she pay a fine, Hundley said.
“Ms. McGowan has accepted this agreement in order to spare her family, her friends, and her supporters the emotional strain of a criminal trial,” Hundley told TheWrap. “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. Ms. McGowan will comment on the day of the plea.”
McGowan was indicted last year stemming from a January 2017 incident at Washington Dulles International Airport. According to the charging documents, cocaine was found in a wallet that she left in a plane, the AP reported.
McGowan told the New Yorker that she brought a slim wallet on her trip to D.C. and did not take it out of her bag during the flight. “I had it in the side pocket of my backpack, and I left it on my seat as I went to the bathroom,” she said.
Once she got off the plane, she called a Lyft car to pick her up while standing at baggage claim and noticed her wallet had disappeared, the actress said. McGowan said she filed a claim for the lost luggage and tweeted the airline to ask for help in finding her wallet.
When a staff member was cleaning the plane McGowan had been on, that worker and his supervisor said it contained two small bags of white powder, which was later determined to be cocaine.
McGowan, who has accused Harvey Weinstein of raping her, has argued that the drugs could have been planted, given the spans of time during which unknown individuals may have had access to her wallet.
Weinstein has denied McGowan’s accusations.