Daniele Watts, an African-American actress who has starred in Hollywood films such as Django Unchained, has claimed she was "handcuffed and detained" by Los Angeles police officers after being mistaken for a prostitute. Courtesy: YouTube/VideoNews247
The Django Unchained actress accused of having sex in a car in public last year has pleaded no contest to disturbing the peace, and has been ordered to apologise to police officers.
The African American star Daniele Watts, who initially claimed that police action was racially motivated, accepted a misdemeanourcharge of disturbing the peace along with her boyfriend.
In exchange prosecutors dropped charges of committing a lewd act in public, which could have seen her and white boyfriend Brian James Lucas face up to six months in jail and a US$1,000 (NZ$1,326) fine if convicted.
As part of the deal the couple were ordered to issue written apologies to three Los Angeles police officers, and to perform 40 hours of community service, according to the LA City Attorney's Office.
At the time Watts complained on Facebook about her arrest after the September 11 incident in Studio City, an upscale neighbourhood of north Los Angeles, in which she was handcuffed and briefly detained.
The pair insisted they were only showing affection, after police responded to a radio call from a concerned citizen about "indecent exposure" inside a silver Mercedes with the door open.
Police said initially that "upon further investigation it was determined that no crime had been committed", while an audio tape recorded by the officer involved appeared to refute Watts' claim of racial profiling.
But following the emergence of various videos and photos, published notably by the TMZ celebrity news website, they decided to investigate further and brought charges against the couple in October.
Watts played Coco in Quentin Tarantino's Oscar-winning 2012 film Django Unchained.
