USA: Boy George begins compulsory community service sweeping New York streets

Singer Boy George began a court-ordered community service on Monday (August 14) but found a major obstacle when a throng of news photographers prevented him from sweeping the streets of Lower Manhattan. A judge had sentenced him to five days of community service in March for falsely reporting a burglary. It was part of a plea deal that allowed him to escape more serious charges of drug possession. George, the cross-dressing front man for the chart-topping 1980s British pop band Culture Club, traded his costumes for dark sunglasses, gloves and an orange safety vest. His manager, Jeremy Pearce was there to lend support. "My guess is that he'll relate quite well to the other guys doing it so I don't know if that gives it a spiritual value but certainly I don't he'll find it, I may be totally wrong, it depends what sort of people they are, but I think there's quite a good chance he'll get on well with them and they'll like him," he told Reuters. O'Dowd told journalists that sweeping the streets was humbling, even though his mother was a cleaner and his father a builder. His street-cleaning expedition did not last long, however. The singer was boxed in by photographers, forcing city Sanitation Department officials to move him from the streets near Chinatown to a fenced-off parking lot for more sweeping. "Due to the fact that there was a massive amount of people hovering over George O'Dowd, I decided that for everyone's' safety, yourselves included, the safety of George O'Dowd, the personnel that were working with him and for everyone involved, including the citizens that were trying to get through one of the streets, I felt it was necessary for everyone to come back into this location," said Sanitation Department deputy chief, Albert Durrell. O'Dowd continued sweeping, but in the safer confines of the sanitation department's grounds, where the press have no access. The charges which led to the community service sentence stem from an incident last year when police responded to his call reporting a burglary and found 13 bags of cocaine in his apartment. At a court hearing in June, defense lawyer Louis Freeman warned that a street-sweeping scene "would turn into a media circus" and asked for his client to work with an AIDS charity. Criminal Court Judge Anthony Ferrara threatened to send George to jail if he failed to complete community service by August 28.

ITN Source | August 14, 2006

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