LOS ANGELES — Trouble and Charlie Sheen have never been strangers, but now the star’s felony rap could cause major headaches for his TV bosses.

Sheen was charged last week with felony menacing and two lesser counts in connection with a Christmas incident in which Aspen, Colo., police said he assaulted and threatened his wife, Brooke Mueller.

Sheen is due back for a court hearing March 15. If convicted, he could face three years behind bars.

What does that mean for CBS’s “Two and a Half Men,” the No. 1-rated sitcom that stars Sheen as a caddish lout? Well, probably nothing good.

Insiders say that the producers can likely rejigger the remainder of this season’s production schedule while Sheen prepares his defense. But the long-term situation is much more uncertain.

CBS will likely find itself announcing a fall schedule without even knowing whether the star will be available to shoot new episodes in late summer.

Mueller has expressed a desire that the case against her husband be dropped, but Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said prosecutors may still use the tape of her 911 call in which she said Sheen had a knife.

McClatchy-Tribune Information Services