The actress Winona Ryder was yesterday sentenced to probation, fined and ordered to do community service for shoplifting from Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills last year, amid courtroom scenes reminiscent of a Hollywood drama.
She was also required to take drug and psychological counselling.
”You have disappointed many people who have been entertained and inspired by your talent,” Judge Elden Fox told the Oscar-nominated actress. He said he had been unable to explain to his 16-year-old son, Ryan, why someone who earned so much ($6-million a film) should shoplift: ”You are the only person that’s going to be able to answer my son’s question.” He told the actress that she had clearly reached ”a crossroads in her life” when she went on a shoplifting spree in the store.
He sentenced the star of such films as Girl, Interrupted, The Age of Innocence, Little Women and Beetlejuice to 36 months probation and 480 hours of community service at charities, including those involving blind children and babies with Aids in the Los Angeles area. She was fined a total of $3 700, ordered to make restitution to Saks for the 20 stolen items. and required to submit to counselling for her ”aberrant behaviour”.
Ryder (31) did not speak except to say that she understood that if she committed a similar offence she would go to jail. But her lawyer, Marg Geragos, entered an impassioned plea for clemency on her behalf, citing her work with American Indians and on behalf of the family of the kidnapped and murdered Californian child, Polly Klaas, whose case became a national cause celebre nine years ago.
”She is one of the classiest women I have ever met,” Geragos told the packed court, citing her offer of a $1-million reward in the Klaas case, a documentary she had made and financed on children in the sex trade in India and her work with the American Indian college fund which sends low-income Native Americans to university.
As a result of the case, said Geragos, ”she is going to carry the scarlet letter of S for shoplifting for the rest of her life”. He gave no explanation for the offence but said she suffered from a ”pain management” problem which she had been addressing with prescription drugs, eight varieties of which were found on her at the time of her arrest.
The reference to Polly Klaas prompted the prosecuting attorney, Ann Rundle, to accuse Ryder of ”trotting out the body of a dead child” in her plea for leniency. This remark outraged Ryder who leapt to her feet in protest at the claim. The judge intervened, calmed the court and told the actress that he had no intention of making an example of her.
Outside the court, the dead girl’s father, Mark Klaas, accused Ms Rundle of being a ”third-rate prosecutor” and praised Ryder for the help she had given his family when his daughter was still missing. ”She gave to me in my deepest, darkest hour of need,” he said. ”She was a loyal friend to me and I’ll be a loyal friend to her.”
Ryder, who arrived at the court in a black sports car, was convicted last month of stealing 20 items worth a total of $5 560 from the Beverly Hills branch of Saks last year. Security guards from the store gave evidence that she had told them she was acting on the instructions of a director in preparation for a film role as a shoplifter, but no evidence was introduced to support this. Ryder, who pleaded not guilty, did not give evidence. Earlier charges connected with her possession of a variety of prescription drugs were dropped.
The court also heard from a Saks executive who said that shoplifing was a not a victimless crime, that it cost the industry $10-billion and Saks $7-million a year and that Ryder was a ”movie star thief”. – Guardian Unlimited (c)Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001