Tearful Courtney Love ordered into rehab facility

Rock singer Courtney Love (R) is consoled by her attorney Howard Weitzman during a probation hearing at the Los Angeles Criminal Courthouse. Picture / Reuters

LOS ANGELES - A judge ordered a tearful Courtney Love into an in-patient substance abuse facility on Friday after the troubled rock singer admitted to violating the terms of her probation by using drugs.

Love broke down in quiet sobs as Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Rand Rubin warned that he was prepared to send her to jail because he felt she needed "to hit rock bottom" before she was ready to overcome her drug addiction.

However, Rubin said the performer's lawyers persuaded him to give her one more chance to avoid incarceration by placing her immediately into a "chemical dependency centre."

"I'm convinced that you need either a long-term (treatment) programme or a long-term stay in the county jail," Rubin said.

After regaining her composure, the 41-year-old former singer of the band Hole and widow of Nirvana rocker Kurt Cobain was ushered out of the courthouse by sheriff's deputies and her lawyers without speaking to reporters.

The judge ordered Love to return to court on September 16 to review her progress and levy a sentence for her probation violation, which stems from an incident last month in which Love was taken by ambulance from the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel to a hospital.

Love's representatives said at the time that she had merely felt faint, but city fire officials said they were responding to a report of a drug overdose. Police said a crime report was taken that night under the name of "Courtney L."

In court papers, prosecutors said only that the singer had been under the influence of a "controlled substance." But Deputy District Attorney Gina Satriano has told reporters the allegation involved "some sort of narcotic."

Love's attorney, Howard Weitzman, acknowledged to reporters that his client has suffered a "relapse" but was determined to "move forward" in her recovery.

Satriano said the judge could impose further probation conditions on Love, and up to a year in jail, when she returns to court next month.

In the meantime, Love will remain at an undisclosed residential treatment facility. She previously had been ordered to undergo out-patient drug rehabilitation in connection with two previous drug cases.

She entered guilty pleas in May 2004 and in February of this year to separate charges of being under the influence of cocaine and illegal possession of the painkiller oxycodone.

She also pleaded no contest in February to a misdemeanor assault charge for attacking a woman at the home of her ex-boyfriend last April. In October of 2004, she pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct for hitting a man in the head with a microphone stand at a New York nightclub. Until now, she has received no jail time in any of those cases.

- REUTERS