Supermodel Naomi Campbell pleads guilty to assaulting maid with cellphone
The supermodel avoided jail time for striking her maid with a cellphone Tuesday when she pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault as part of an agreement with prosecutors in Manhattan.
Supermodel Naomi Campbell leaves after her court appearance at Manhattan Supreme Court in New York, January 16, 2007. [Reuters]
In exchange for admitting guilt to reckless assault, the 36-year-old Campbell was sentenced to five days of community service, participation in a two-day anger management class and payment of $363 to cover the maid's emergency room bill.
A felony assault conviction could have landed her in prison for as long as seven years.
During a five-minute court hearing in Manhattan Criminal Court, Campbell, clad in a clingy, black Rachel Roy dress, gray Louis Vuitton jacket and four-inch stilettos, read a statement in which she acknowledged hurling the phone in her Park Avenue residence on March 30, but insisted she wasn't aiming for the victim.
"I threw a cellphone in the apartment. The cellphone hit [maid] Ana [Scolavino]. That was an accident, because I did not intend to hit her," Campbell said.
She did not explain what prompted her to throw the phone. Scolavino has said that Campbell became enraged after she could not find a pair of $200 jeans she wanted to wear for an appearance on the TV show "Oprah."
Campbell has a rocky history with employees. In 1998, she pleaded guilty to striking an assistant, Georgina Galanis, with a telephone in Canada. She is facing a civil suit brought by another maid, Gaby Gibson, who claims that Campbell hit her in the head last January when she could not find a pair of Stella McCartney jeans.
Her lawyer, David Breitbart, told Judge Robert Mandelbaum that she has been portrayed inaccurately in the media as a violent hothead.
"She's been ostracized by the press, but in fact, she happens to be gracious and charitable," he said, citing recent goodwill trips to Israel, Egypt and South Africa, as well as what he described as her mentoring of young models.
Campbell offered a limited apology to Scolavino, who has retained a civil attorney and is expected to file suit against her.
"I am advised that Ana was hurt, and I am deeply sorry about that," she said in court.
As she pursed her famously plump lips and stared at the floor in front of the judge's bench, her attorney requested that she be given an extra month to complete the community service because of the demands of "what is known in the business as Fashion Week."
Breitbart said Campbell was booked for runway modeling and photo shoots in California, Brazil, London, Paris and Milan in the coming weeks.
He also asked that she be allowed to perform her community service inside rather than outside, saying she feared "stalkers."
Another British celebrity who ran afoul of New York City's laws, singer Boy George, was followed by a troop of reporters when he spent a week picking up garbage on Manhattan streets. Breitbart said Campbell was hoping for secretarial assignment or perhaps one in a school or hospital.
The judge said he would allow Campbell until March to complete her service, but said it was up to the community service department to choose her assignment.
Following the guilty plea, Campbell submitted a sample of DNA, as is required by law, and met briefly with community service personnel. She was accompanied by a seven-person entourage that included two bodyguards, assistants, publicists and her attorney and trailed by 20 members of the press. Her exit from the courthouse into a waiting Cadillac SUV was captured by more than 60 photographers and camera crews.
Her lawyer noted that she sold her apartment after the incident and said she no longer considers herself a resident of the city.
"She hasn't been treated great in New York," Breitbart said.
He maintained that Campbell does not have a bad temper, but allowed that "Naomi is looking very, very hard on her dealings in public and in private with people who are her employees."
