Officials confirmed that Mathers, the ex-wife of rap superstar Eminem, was arrested and arraigned Friday for violating probation after her very first periodic drug test under her court sentence tested positive for cocaine.
One week. That is how long Kimberly Mathers took to blow her second chance at a clean criminal record, and to exhaust the goodwill of Macomb County officials who handled her drug case in court.
Officials confirmed that Mathers, the ex-wife of rap superstar Eminem, was arrested and arraigned Friday for violating probation after her very first periodic drug test under her court sentence tested positive for cocaine.
“She was brought over to the court for a probation violation following her visit with the probation department, and the judge there ordered her held at the jail without bond,” said William Harding, chief of operations for Macomb County prosecutors. “She now awaits a court hearing date on that case.”
Harding said Friday he knew only that a test of Mathers’ urine indicated recent use of a controlled substance, but he did not know which kind. However, officials in the Michigan Department of Corrections, which oversees probation agents, confirmed it was cocaine, and all Mathers’ past narcotics cases have also involved that drug.
Russ Marlan, a Corrections spokesman in Lansing, said the judge has the discretion as to whether they want someone kept in custody, or to give them a bond.
“This case today proceeded because she was scheduled to report (Thursday), and didn’t make it in. So she came in (Friday) on a follow-up visit, and admitted to use of the drug,” Marlan said.
Officials explain that Mathers, 29, of Clinton Township, who shares a daughter with ex-husband and musician Marshall Bruce Mathers, also known as Eminem, submitted to a regular drug test of her urine Jan. 29. She is required to submit to the test under a probation sentence imposed Jan. 21 for possession of less than 25 grams of cocaine.
That test proved positive for cocaine, taken apparently within the preceding 12 to 72 hours, and she missed her next appointment with county probation officials Thursday. After some effort to locate her, she came in to the offices Friday and admitted to the cocaine use. Probation agents then took her immediately to court on the matter.
Macomb County Circuit Judge Edward A. Servitto ordered her held without bond until a hearing can be held Feb. 12, a fact administrators at the Macomb County Jail confirmed late Friday.
Michael Sinutko, a defense attorney who has represented Mathers in her criminal cases, did not return phone calls Friday seeking comment about the latest incident.
Mathers entered pleas in December to a charge of possessing 25 grams or less of cocaine and for failing to give adequate space to an emergency vehicle. Those charges stem from a June police traffic stop of Mathers and a friend in St. Clair Shores.
In return for that plea, a third charge was dropped along with a charge from a separate drug-related case in Warren, and Judge Servitto sentenced her Jan. 21 to probation and the so-called “7411 status.” That provision, named after a section of state law, provides that her cases would be sealed and the convictions kept off her record if she abided by the terms of probation and/or other terms of the court.
Prosecutors opposed 7411 status for Mathers, but denied it was preferential treatment for a famous defendant. If she is convicted of the probation violation, Marlan and other officials said, her 7411 status will be revoked and she could face up to four years in prison for the original drug conviction.
If it’s true that Mathers used cocaine again after sentencing, it’s not the first time she did not comply with instructions by the local courts.
Mathers was facing criminal charges for a June incident where St. Clair Shores police stopped her Cadillac Escalade on a moving violation along Interstate 94 and found cocaine inside the vehicle.
While that case was pending, and she was under bond with the instruction not to be involved in other crimes or drug incidents, Warren police also found her on a bust that uncovered drugs at a hotel room party Sept. 29. Mathers had no drugs on her personally in that case, but the room was rented in her name and she allegedly knew drugs were present.
While both of those cases were pending, Mathers then failed to appear in court as scheduled and was ordered to wear an electronic tether; sometime later, she broke or removed that tether and again failed to appear in court, another violation of her bond.