Judge orders former ‘Jackass’ star Bam Margera to stay in Pennsylvania and report to rehab

Former Jackass star Bam Margera returned to his hometown Thursday, appearing before a Chester County judge to answer to charges stemming from allegations that he assaulted his brother and made terroristic threats toward other family members in April.

Wearing a suit and flanked by his lawyers, Margera, 43, strode into the Chester County Justice Center, smiling and stopping to pose for photos as paparazzi swarmed the otherwise quiet street in downtown West Chester. Passing through the courthouse metal detectors, Margera showed the security officers the metal skateboard bearings in his pocket.

The troubled MTV celebrity flew in from California the morning of his hearing — which was delayed by two hours due to an issue with the red-eye flight — and said he intended to fly right back to his home in San Diego.

But after learning that Margera had failed to check in regularly with his pretrial officer and had not yet submitted his drug and alcohol evaluation to the court, Magisterial District Judge Albert Michael Iacocca had other plans, ordering Margera to remain within the five-county Philadelphia region until the case against him was resolved, and to report to a rehabilitation center in Devon by Friday morning.

“Everyone’s here for you, sir. There are many people who sit in your chair who have no one. Remember that,” the judge said, motioning to Bam Margera’s family seated in the courtroom before holding over a misdemeanor count of assault and two counts of making terroristic threats.

In addition to sending him to the treatment facility, Iacocca also ordered Margera to cooperate with random drug and alcohol screenings, and to avoid criminal contact with his brother, Jesse, and his brother’s girlfriend. Margera remains free on $50,000 unsecured bail.

The judge’s order followed a two-hour hearing just over a block away from the Chester County Historic Courthouse, where Margera filmed stunts with friends for MTV’s Jackass, which aired in 2000 and 2001.

A number of the show’s antics also involved his family members at the center of the allegations against him.

“I just want my brother back. I just want to get him well again,” Jesse Margera told the judge solemnly from the witness stand.

Jesse Margera, the preliminary hearing’s lone witness, recounted the April morning his younger brother is alleged to have threatened and assaulted him. Bam Margera was in town visiting family for two weeks, his brother said, staying at his famed Pocopson Township home, best known as Castle Bam.

“It was pretty chill for the first few days, and then it started getting really bad,” Jesse said. But, by Jesse’s account, Bam Margera soon began partying with friends at Castle Bam, and “he seemed more and more inebriated.”

“His behavior started getting more and more frightening,” Jesse Margera said, adding that his children were supposed to visit for the weekend, but he no longer felt comfortable having them in the home. “You don’t know if he’s going to tell you a funny story or stab you with a broken whiskey bottle.”

(Michael van der Veen, Margera’s lawyer, objected to the characterization, pointing out that Bam Margera hadn’t stabbed his brother with a broken bottle, except “on tour, maybe.”)

The morning of the alleged assault, Jesse told the judge, he awoke to find a note signed by Bam outside his door, threatening him if he even thought of calling the police.

Jesse then said he walked downstairs to find his brother writing “his own alphabet” on the kitchen table in a language he had developed (“part of his genius,” van der Veen later said), and “talking to someone who wasn’t there.” After Bam Margera saw a text on his brother’s phone from a friend suggesting he be placed in a psychiatric hospital, Jesse said, his younger brother repeatedly punched him, scraping his nose with his rings and rupturing Jesse’s eardrum, which “leaked fluid for two weeks.”

Bam also urinated in the kitchen sink and had “smashed a bunch of stuff,” his brother said, including a guitar once belonging to rocker Billy Idol — a gift from Bam to his mother.

According to his brother, Bam had threatened that weekend to “put a bullet in the head” of Jesse and their parents, April and Phil, and “put a bear trap” on the leg of Jesse’s girlfriend, who eventually called police.

“She was just completely freaked out because she didn’t know what we have been dealing with for two decades,” Jesse testified. Bam then fled into the woods behind the home, according to court documents, and Pennsylvania State Police issued a warrant for his arrest.

Van der Veen — perhaps best known as the Philadelphia-based defense lawyer in former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial last year — contended that the case was a matter of a “disagreement between two brothers on a Sunday morning,” and, as a family that made money from filming often violent antics on Jackass, that “this is just the way they live.”

“This is the way the family operates,” he said, as Margera’s mother mouthed “What?” and looked around the courtroom in disbelief.

But Assistant District Attorney Zachary Yurick told the judge Margera’s actions appeared to stem from a battle with drugs and alcohol, noting that he has “a family who’s willing to testify to his 20-year drug addiction.”

“I’ve watched it, we’ve all watched it,” Iacocca responded.

“I’m not trying to get him in trouble here. I just want him to get the help he needs, because I feel like this is our last chance,” Jesse Margera told the judge.

Bam Margera has been in and out of rehab facilities for years and has long seen his struggles with sobriety play out publicly — including a brief stint in a Las Vegas detox center in June with the assistance of former NBA player Lamar Odom, who has also publicly struggled with addiction.

In the last few months, a custody battle with Margera and his estranged wife over their son has been splashed in tabloid headlines, his being temporarily detained in a Los Angeles psychiatric hospital after threatening to harm himself.

In court on Thursday, Margera told the judge that the hope of seeing his 5-year-old son prompted him to check into the California facility.

“Unless you’re sober for yourself, it’s short-lived,” the judge told him.

“We just all love him so much and care about him,” Margera’s mother told the judge from the gallery. “And we want the best for him, and for his son.”

Before ordering Margera to report to the rehabilitation center, Iacocca issued him a firm warning to abide by the terms of his bail.

“You don’t have an excuse for this,” the judge said. “This is not a joke. This is not a movie. This is life.”