'Growing Pains'' Tracey Gold Gets Probation

The actress pleads guilty to a second felony DUI charge after rolling her SUV

Former Growing Pains star Tracey Gold was placed on three years’ probation after pleading guilty to a second felony drunken-driving charge related to a September 2004 rollover crash that injured her husband and two of her three children.

Gold, 35, had pleaded guilty in January to a felony DUI, but a judge on Monday reduced the charge to a misdemeanor, the Associated Press reports. Deputy District Attorney Jeff Gorrell objected to reducing her charge and held to the child-endangerment charges against the actress, saying: “As far as we’re concerned, it was felony conduct. I had no choice but to halt the process, stonewall and force her to plead (to an additional count).”

Gold pleaded guilty to the second felony drunken-driving charge and Superior Court Judge Bruce Clark sentenced her to three years’ probation, completion of 30 days of work release supervised by the jail and 240 hours of community service.

Since the traffic incident, Gold, who played Carole Seaver on Growing Pains from 1985-89, has spoken to school groups about the hazards of drunken driving. Outside courtroom this week, the actress said she wanted to let students know “every decision you make you have to be responsible for. … It’s been, for me, very healing.”

Gold was arrested Sept. 3 by California Highway Patrol officers after she lost control of her 2001 GMC Yukon with her husband and three sons inside. Gold’s husband, Roby Marshall, and two of their sons (ages 5 and 4 months) were not seriously injured but their eldest child, 7-year-old Sage, suffered a broken clavicle and a head laceration.

After CHP officers administered sobriety tests, Gold was arrested. She spent five hours behind bars before being released on $50,000 bail.