DOWNEY JR.SENTENCED TO PRISON

Courts: The three year term comes in the wake of the actor's violation of
his probation for a drug conviction.

Malibu-Robert Downey Jr. ran out of second chances Thursday when a judge
ignored his pleas for more drug rehabilitation and sentenced him to three
years in prison.

"It's like I've go a shotgun in my mouth, with my finger on the trigger, and
I like the taste of the gunmetal," the actor told municipal Judge Lawrence
Mira.

Downey had been jailed since June, after he acknowledged during his regular
half-yearly visit to the judge that he had been missing scheduled drug
tests.

Mira said Downey has manipulated doctors and psychiatrists during seven
court-ordered drug rehabilitation programs.

"I don't think we have any alternative," the judge said. "We have used them
all."

Downey, 34, will likely serve a year behind bars, lawyers said. The judge
credited him 201 days for time served and ordered him to pay $600
restitution for violating probation on a 1996 drug conviction.

"Is there a question that if this defendant continues to use drugs that
we're going to read his name in an obituary?" Mira said.

Defense attorney Robert Shapiro, one of O.J. Simpson's lawyers, had argued
that Downey should again receive probation and be allowed to continue
treatment at a rehab center.

"This is a person who is suffering from a disease he can't control," he
said. "Even the dire threat of jail or prison is not enough of a deterrent."

Outside court, Shapiro told reporters: "I am shocked and saddened by the
sentence today ... It is wrong, it does not serve justice. Mr. Downey was on
the road to recovery."

Shapiro said he would appeal, but acknowledged that "appealing sentences in
cases like this, in all candor, is very difficult."

Downey's legal troubles date to June 1996 when he was stopped for speeding
on Pacific Coast Highway and authorities found cocaine, heroin and a pistol
in his car. A month later, he was found passed out on a child's bed in a
neighbor's home. Three days later, he was arrested for leaving a recovery
center.

He was sentenced to three years' probation after pleading no contest to drug
and weapons charges. Despite stints in recovery, probation was revoked
because of his drug use, and he was sentenced to six months in jail. He was
released in March 1998 after serving almost four months.

The son of film director Robert Downey won an Oscar nomination for his work
in the title role in "Chaplin," the 1992 biography of the comedian. His
other films include "Less Than Zero," "Natural Born Killers," "One Night
Stand," "Two Girls and a Guy" and "U.S.Marshals."