Defense attorney David Raybin told Judge Randall Wyatt that English, as a first offender, will seek probation. The maximum sentence is 48 years in jail and fines up to $120,000.

English, 38, answered “yes” and “I understand” to a series of questions from the judge. He answered “guilty” when Wyatt asked him for his plea.

“Do you understand exactly what you’re doing and what the consequences are?” Wyatt asked..

The singer responded, “I understand.”

Following the hearing, Raybin said English “was guilty of these offenses. He’s never denied that. The issue is one of appropriate sanctions.”

English had been charged with 12 counts of fraudulently obtaining the prescription drughydrocodone, a painkiller similar to codeine.

He said with the drug began after he admitted an adulterous affair with a backup singer in 1994. Because of the scandal, English returned six Gospel Music Association trophies the night after winning them.

Rejection by the Christian music community is in part what led English to drugs, he said. He got hooked on hydrocodone after getting a prescription following a back surgery. He took some leftover pills to fight flu symptoms and gradually developed an addiction.

At one point, he was seeing multiple doctors to get ever-increasing doses of the drug.

He says he’d stopped doing that and was on his way to kicking the habit when someone informed police about his multiple prescriptions and he was arrested.