Mel Gibson pleads no contest to battery charge

Mel Gibson has pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor spousal battery charge hours after it was filed.

The Academy Award winner appeared in a Los Angeles courtroom Friday and entered the plea to end the case before it goes to trial. He was placed on probation and ordered to enroll in a domestic violence counseling program.

He is accused of striking then-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva during a fight in January 2010.

The Russian musician did not attend the hearing but was represented by one of her attorneys.

The actor-director arrived in court accompanied by his attorney, Blair Berk, who has said Gibson sought to end the case after considering the case's impact on hischildren, including his youngest an infant daughter with Grigorieva. Earlier Friday, Los Angeles prosecutors charged the Academy Award-winner in the incident. Gibson is not expected to serve any jail time.

In 2010,recordings of Gibsonusing a racial epithet and calling Grigorieva a "whore" were posted online by a celebrity website. The widely heard recordings and a subsequentdomestic-violence investigationturned Gibson into somewhat of aHollywood outcast.