Looking her best
Posted on 06/03/2002 6:20:38 PM PDT by Bubba_Leroy
A court hearing into shoplifting charges against Winona Ryder that began with an irked judge ordering the Oscar-nominated actress to court was interrupted on Monday when she was apparently injured during a media scrum outside the courthouse.
In a bizarre twist to an already strange day, Ryder's attorney told Superior Court Judge Elden Fox that his famous client could not go on with the hearing, which had already been postponed four times, because she needed medical attention.
Attorney Mark Geragos told Fox that Ryder, in trying to return to court amid a crush of television cameras and reporters, was struck on her right elbow -- which was still sensitive from a previous injury -- by a piece of equipment.
Ryder gingerly nursed her right elbow as Judge Fox excused the parties from court and asked that they return on a date to be determined later. Television footage of the incident, meanwhile, showed Ryder nursing her left elbow immediately after the brush with a cameraman.
Geragos had arrived in court without Ryder, explaining to Fox that he was seeking another postponement of the matter despite an earlier admonition by the judge that he would not delay the sixth-month old case again.
Fox also rejected an 11th-hour motion by Geragos to have the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office removed from the case over allegations by the high-profile defense attorney that they had an "ax to grind" against Ryder.
"I WANT YOUR CLIENT HERE"
"I want your client here, so call her," a clearly impatient Fox told Geragos.
Ryder, appearing pale and nervous, arrived about an hour later, wearing a cream coat and matching hair band, offering no comment to a throng of reporters gathered outside court and taking a seat before prosecutors called their first witness.
The 30-year-old actress, who first shot to fame in the 1988 ghost comedy "Beetlejuice," was arrested in December on charges of trying to steal clothes, handbags and accessories worth about $4,800 from the Beverly Hills Saks Fifth Avenue store.
Kenneth Evans, a security manager for Saks called as the first witness by prosecutors, testified that Ryder was tracked on video camera as she shopped for designer clothes.
Evans said security personnel watched as Ryder walked through the store with a pile of clothes on one hand, at one point going into a fitting room and emerging "no longer plainly in possession of items."
He said Ryder first caught the attention of store security officers because she was carrying multiple items of merchandise and bags while selecting other items and holding them in her hand.
Evans said that at the end of her shopping spree, Ryder took an escalator down two floors and walked past three cash registers before leaving the store.
Geragos has said that Ryder paid for all of her merchandise and vowed that she would be exonerated of the charges.
Geragas is probably the sleaziest lawyer west of the Mississippi
He's lower than whale **** on the bottom of the ocean
Looking her best
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