Wife Claims Former Creed Singer Threw Bottle at Her at Their Home Near Boca

May 21, 01:54 PM

Current Headlines: By Leon Fooksman, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

May 21--WEST PALM BEACH -- The former lead singer of the rock band Creed on Monday was freed from the Palm Beach County Jail on supervised release after he was accused of assaulting his wife at their $4.9 million home west of Boca Raton over the weekend, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office said.

Scott Stapp, 33, who has had run-ins with police for alleged drunken behavior and reckless driving, was released without having to post a bond on the second-degree misdemeanor count.

Under the conditions set by Circuit Judge Cory Ciklin, Stapp can not have contact with his wife or enter their home, except to use the recording studio there. He is also required to undergo random drug testing and consume no alcohol or illegal drugs.

Stapp was initially charged with aggravated assault with intent to commit a felony after being arrested Sunday at his home. No one was injured, PBSO said.

Ciklin reduced the charge "because the allegation is that Stapp threw a bottle of Orangina at his wife, at her head, and missed and the bottle broke," sheriff's spokesman Paul Miller said.

"Based on the circumstances, the defense attorney argued that was not a deadly weapon," Miller said.

According to a sheriff's report, deputies were called to the home on the 8800 block of Twin Lake Drive in Long Lake Estates, which Stapp co-owns with his wife, former Miss New York Jaclyn Nesheiwat, around 10:30 a.m. Sunday.

Nesheiwat. told officers that her husband arrived home around 8 a.m. She said he was stumbling and appeared impaired. She said she began questioning him and it led to an exchange that ended when she said he threw a bottle of orange drink at her. The bottle missed, she said, but broke when it hit the floor of her bedroom. She told deputies she ran away and called 911 for help.

Stapp's lawyer, Robert Gershman, denied a bottle was thrown.

Stapp married Nesheiwat in 2006. The couple exchanged vows at the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, an estate on the waterfront of Biscayne Bay in Miami. While on the way to their honeymoon in Hawaii, he was arrested on suspicion of being drunk in public at the Los Angeles airport.

On Thanksgiving 2005, he got into a widely publicized fight in a Baltimore hotel with members of the rock band 311.

He was arrested on a reckless driving offense in 2002 by the Orange County Sheriff's Office, state records show. After the airport incident, Stapp promised to get his life together. According to an article in the music magazine Rolling Stone, Stapp was traveling with a "sobriety coach" while on tour last year.

In January, he and his wife had a baby girl, Milan Hayat Stapp. He also has a son, Jagger, from a previous relationship.

The rocker founded Creed and won a Grammy Award in 2000 for the song With Arms Wide Open. The group sold 25 million records in the United States before he went out on his own last year with the solo album The Great Divide.

Nesheiwat has been the director of public affairs for the Scott Stapp Foundation, which promotes healthy parent-child relationships, People magazine reported. Earlier this month, Stapp announced his sponsorship of The Haven, a group home for abused and neglected boys west of Boca Raton.

"This is a private matter between the members of the Stapp family, and we would hope that their privacy is respected. Scott and Jaclyn are both well, and any further relevant information will be forthcoming at the appropriate time," said a statement from Stapp's record company, Wind-up Records.

Leon Fooksman can be reached at lfooksman@sun-sentinel.com or 561-243-6647.

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