'Teen mom' star eyes drug diversion program

ANDERSON, Ind. (WISH) - A Madison County judge on Monday accepted embattled reality TV star Amber Portwood’s guilty plea on drug and probation violation charges.

Portwood, 21, one of the stars of MTV’s “Teen Mom,” is hoping to be allowed into the county’s drug court diversion program, according to 24-Hour News 8 news partner The Herald Bulletin . Madison Circuit Court Judge David Happe said he’ll make that ruling Thursday. Until then, Portwood will remain in jail, where she’s been since Dec. 19.

“I understand it’s going to be hard,” she said of the drug court program, “but I have a lot to lose.”

If Portwood is accepted into drug court, she will have to get a full-time job, Happe said, and successfully complete the program in order for the cases against her to be dismissed.

If she fails, however, she will spend five years in the Indiana Department of Correction.

Portwood was arrested Dec. 19 at the courthouse during a meeting with probation officers for violating several terms of her probation, including failing to deposit $10,000 into a college trust fund for her daughter, Leah Shirley, owing $56 in probation fees, failing to submit to drug tests and not getting her GED or completing anger management classes, The Herald Bulletin reports.

As part of the plea agreement accepted Monday, Portwood’s attorney Evan Broderick said the trust fund will be set up once she is out of jail.

Portwood said she was working on receiving her high school diploma before the arrested on parole violations, and she added she will pay her $56 probation fee when released.

Dec. 22, she was charged with Class D felony possession of a controlled substance.

She told Happe she wants her life back and that she thinks about her daughter all the time, when before it was only hydrocodone pills she thought of.

“I’m a better person when I’m off of them,” she said.