PASADENA : Actor Todd Bridges Sent to Treatment Center for Year

Former “Diff’rent Strokes” TV star Todd Bridges was ordered Thursday to spend one year in a live-in drug treatment program and was placed on five years probation after that for narcotics and weapons offenses.

A six-year prison sentence was suspended by Pasadena Superior Court Judge Thomas W. Stoever, who ordered the actor immediately enrolled in a residential drug treatment center.

Bridges had been in custody since Aug. 31 for a psychiatric evaluation. He was expected to be released from jail late Thursday and enroll in an undisclosed treatment center today.

The actor was arrested last Dec. 29 after Burbank police found 1 1/2 grams of methamphetamine and a loaded gun in a car he was driving. Bridges pleaded guilty in July to possession and transportation of a controlled substance and possession of a firearm.