Another 'Brother' Player in Trouble

By Stephen M. Silverman

07/25/2001 at 06:36 PM EDT

CBS on Tuesday got a dose of bad news, not long after the network had come under fire for having a hot-tempered contestant on "Big Brother 2" who, it turned out, had a police record. Now comes the revelation, says The New York Times, that yet another "Brother" contestant has been arrested in the past, under a name he no longer uses. Mike Malin, a prominent member of the current cast, had been arrested in 1997 under the name Michael Carri -- charged with three counts, including criminal trespass and using false identification, says The Times. The incident took place on the Warner Bros. set of "Batman and Robin," where Malin/Carri surreptitiously took photos of the film in production. He was on the movie lot without permission and he apparently intended to sell the pictures to a tabloid TV show. He reportedly pleaded no contest to the charges and was sentenced to three years' probation and 400 hours of community service. (Warner Bros., which like PEOPLE, is part of AOL Time Warner, later sued Carri, who promised never to use his photos.) CBS executives told The Times that they had been aware of Carri's scrape with the law before "Big Brother 2" went on the air, but labeled what he did as a prank and no reason to disqualify him. Carri's fellow contestant Justin Sebik was removed from the show last week, after he took a knife to the throat of a female player. Sebak also had a record of arrests, which CBS had not been aware of.