Mel Gibson Booked on Battery Charge Night of 'Beaver' Premiere

While Mel Gibson's new movie, The Beaver, premiered in Austin at SXSW, the actor turned himself into police for booking on criminal battery charges.

Gibson and his lawyer arrived at the El Segundo Police Department around 9:30 p.m., and Gibson was fingerprinted and posed for a mugshot, Sergeant Dean Howard tells The Hollywood Reporter. Read The Hollywood Reporter’s review of The Beaver, and recap of the premiere.

"He was here for a very short time," Howard says of the less-than-30-minute visit. "He was very pleasant. This is just an old case that the judge wanted him to get fingerprinted for. It isn't anything new. We did it real quick and he was out."

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Gibson was officially charged last Friday with misdemeanor battery for allegedly assaulting his former girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva (with whom he has a 1-year-old daughter, Lucia) in January 2010. He is expected to strike a plea deal that will keep him out of jail. TMZ.com reports that Judge Stephanie Sautner gave Gibson one week from his sentencing to get his mugshot and fingerprints taken.

Gibson was brought to the LAX-area police station instead of his local Malibu one because El Segundo is the L.A. County booking system, Howard said.

Gibson has a supporter in Beaver director, Jodie Foster, who tells the new issue of THR, "I knew the minute I met him, I would love him for the rest of my life."

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