Brando’s Son Agrees to Guilty Plea : Crime: He will admit to the reduced charge of voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of his sister’s lover.

Marlon Brando’s son, Christian, has agreed to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of his sister’s lover, the district attorney’s office said today.

The 32-year-old Brando was scheduled to appear in court in Santa Monica later today to enter the plea as part of a bargain with prosecutors. He will also admit to the use of a firearm.

A sentencing date will be set after he enters the plea. He could be ordered to serve up to 16 years in prison or as little as eight years. Any sentence could be pared roughly in half with time off for good behavior. Under the original murder charge, he could have been sentenced to life in prison if convicted.

The decision to negotiate a plea bargain in the highly publicized case came after months of efforts by prosecutors to force Brando’s sister, Cheyenne, to return from Tahiti and testify about events surrounding the May 16 slaying of Dag Drollet.

Deputy District Attys. Steven Barshop and William Clark met with Cheyenne Brando’s lawyers Thursday in a last bid to win her voluntary cooperation.

“They said that due to her physical and mental condition, she is not available as a witness in the foreseeable future,” district attorney’s spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said.

She said the final agreement for a plea was struck Thursday night after prosecutors contacted Brando’s attorney, Robert Shapiro, who called his client and relayed the decision to plead to the lesser count.

Cheyenne Brando was reported to have attempted suicide twice in the months after Drollet was shot to death at Marlon Brando’s Hollywood Hills mansion.

The 20-year-old woman gave birth to Drollet’s child after she was hustled off to her home in Tahiti. She was considered the key witness in Christian Brando’s case because she had dined with him hours before the shooting and reportedly had complained that Drollet had been abusing her.