Probation

LAKE OSWEGO, Ore. (AP) - The wife of actor Daniel Baldwin is scheduled appear in Lake Oswego, Ore., municipal court Wednesday afternoon on a probation violation hearing. Joanne Baldwin has been charged with violating her probation on a previous drunken driving charge. The couple has two children. Daniel Baldwin has filed for divorce and filed a restraining order on his wife, claiming she punched him and threatened him with a knife in front of the couple's children.

ANDERSON, Ind. (AP) — A star of the MTV reality show "Teen Mom" has been given probation after pleading guilty to two felony domestic battery charges. Anderson police investigated the then-20-year-old Amber Portwood after a September episode showed her slapping, choking and kicking the then-24-year-old father of her daughter with the child present. Madison Superior Court Judge David Happe tells The Herald Bulletin that as part of the plea deal he approved Thursday prosecutors dropped a felony child neglect charge against Portwood.

MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. (AP) — A Detroit-area woman who authorities say set her boyfriend on fire and chased him with a butcher knife has been sentenced to three years of probation and time already served. Forty-year-old Sheila Golly of Roseville was sentenced Tuesday in Macomb County Circuit Court in Mount Clemens. She also was sentenced to 142 days in jail, with credit for time served. She pleaded guilty last month to assault with a dangerous weapon. Her defense lawyer has said the plea agreement was in the best interests of all involved.

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — A judge in Ohio gives defendants what sounds like homework assignments as a part of probation sentences. Lucas County Common Pleas Judge Stacy Cook in Toledo has ordered offenders to write five-page reports on topics including teen violence, drug use and head injuries. The judge tells The Blade newspaper her goal is to get defendants thinking about why what they did was wrong and how it hurt others. The Blade reports Cook has told as many as 30 people to write papers since she took the bench in 2007.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — A woman who was arrested outside Ellen DeGeneres' home has pleaded no contest to misdemeanor trespassing. Los Angeles County District Attorney's spokeswoman Jane Robison says Karen Grace Sjoden entered the plea during a hearing on Monday in Beverly Hills. Sjoden was arrested early Feb. 10 outside the comedian and talk show host's home and had elected to represent herself. The 50-year-old has been jailed since then. Robison says Sjoden will be placed on three years of informal probation and was ordered to stay 100 yards away from DeGeneres and her wife, actress Portia (POR'-shuh)

FERNDALE, Mich. (AP) — A Southfield man convicted of aggravated assault after authorities say he showed up uninvited at his pregnant girlfriend's baby shower and assaulted the baby's father has been sentenced to a year of probation. Twenty-five-year-old Tremere Moss-Thomas was sentenced Thursday in District Court in Ferndale. He also was ordered to pay $1,023 in fines and costs. Moss-Thomas was convicted in January following a trial. The Daily Tribune of Royal Oak reports police were called to the Kulick Community Center in Ferndale on July 10 where his girlfriend was having the shower with friends, relatives and the baby's father.

SOUTH BEND – The St. Joseph County Council on Tuesday approved a request for $180,200 to finance a mentoring program at the Juvenile Justice Center. Appropriated from the juvenile probation fees fund, the money will be used to establish the program and reimburse mentors. The program is an attempt to reduce the high rate of recidivism among juvenile offenders in the county, which stood at 50 percent in 2010.

DETROIT (AP) — A young woman accused of giving birth to a stillborn baby in the Detroit area and then abandoning it in northern Michigan has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and been placed on probation. The Wayne County prosecutor's office says Emma Clemens pleaded guilty Wednesday to unlawful disposition of an unclaimed body. A backpack holding the remains was discovered in September in the bushes of a yard in Boyne City, 250 miles north of Detroit.

A woman convicted of starving 14 Afghan hounds in her care last summer was sentenced to one year on probation this morning. Cindy Chandler, 56, had originally been charged with 14 counts of animal neglect, all class A misdemeanors. Chandler pleaded guilty to three counts, and the other 11 were dismissed, court records show. She could have faced up to one year in prison for each count. St. Joseph Superior Court Magistrate Brian Steinke sentenced her to one year in prison on each of the three counts, and he suspended all of them, meaning she doesn’t actually have to go to prison.

CASSOPOLIS — A Dowagiac man’s cooperation with authorities paid off Friday in Cass County Circuit Court. Instead of receiving a minimum three-year prison term as recommended under sentencing guidelines, Nathan Buskirk, 21, received two years of probation based on his cooperation that preceded his guilty plea to methamphetamine and marijuana delivery offenses. Buskirk will serve the first year of his probation in the county jail. Judge Michael Dodge said he decided to deviate from the guidelines after hearing Assistant Cass Prosecutor Tiffiny Vohwinkle argue that Buskirk’s testimony was instrumental in obtaining convictions of co-defendants.