CMT News

Singer-songwriter Billy Joe Shaver has relinquished a pistol and been fined $1,000 as part of a plea bargain stemming from a March 2007 shooting in Texas. In April, a jury in Waco, Texas, acquitted him of aggravated assault after authorities charged him with shooting Billy Coker in the face during an argument outside a bar near Lorena, Texas. The jury ruled that Shaver acted in self defense. Shaver returned to court Wednesday (June 16) to enter a no-contest plea to a misdemeanor charge of unlawfully carrying a weapon. In return for the plea, prosecutors reduced the charge from a third-degree felony count of carrying a pistol by a licensed person on a licensed premises. In addition to the fine, the judge required Shaver to forfeit the 22-caliber pistol he used to shoot Coker.