Tatum O'Neal pleads guilty in New York drug case

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oscar winner Tatum O'Neal, the former child actress who chronicled her struggles with addiction in a 2004 memoir, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to disorderly conduct stemming from her drug arrest in June.

O'Neal, 44, was ordered to attend two half-day drug treatment sessions and to pay a $95 (48 pound) fee, court officials said.

"I'm going back to my meetings and back to my life. ... I'm just glad that I got the deal that I got," the actress told The New York Daily News outside Manhattan criminal court.

O'Neal was initially charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance, a misdemeanour offence punishable by up to one year in jail, court officials said.

Local media reported that the actress was caught buying crack cocaine from a homeless street vendor on the night of June 1, three blocks from her home.

A police spokesman said she was seen buying a controlled substance from a man in Manhattan's Lower East Side, once a crime-infested neighbourhood that has become trendy.

At 10, O'Neal became the youngest person to win a competitive Academy Award for her supporting role in "Paper Moon," in which she starred along with her father, Ryan O'Neal.

That led to her role in 1976's "The Bad News Bears" in which she became, at the time, the highest-paid child star in history, according to the Internet Movie Database.

In her memoir "A Paper Life," O'Neal wrote about her addiction to heroin. O'Neal has said she later sought help and got off drugs.

In recent years she has appeared in the television shows "Rescue Me" and "Wicked Wicked Games."

She was due back in court September 4 to confirm she complied with the court order and to pay the fee.

(Reporting by Edith Honan; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Xavier Briand)