Winona Ryder guilty of shoplifting

Actress Winona Ryder was tonight found guilty of shoplifting more than $5,500 worth of designer goods from a Saks Fifth Avenue store last year.

The jury found Ryder guilty of grand theft and vandalism, but acquitted her of burglary.

Ryder, 31, twice an Academy Award nominee, was calm and showed no emotion. She kept her eyes trained on the jurors as they were asked whether the verdicts were accurate. They said yes.

The conviction carries a maximum sentence of three years in a state prison, but Ryder could receive the minimum punishment of probation. Sentencing was set for December 6.

The one count on which she was acquitted, burglary, required evidence of a specific intent to go into the store and deprive it of property. A spokeswoman for the district attorney, Sandi Gibbons, said jurors often believe that burglary is a crime of breaking and entering, but it does not require those specific circumstances for the charge to be levied.

Ryder was arrested on December 12 2001, as she left the Beverly Hills store, her arms laden with packages.

The prosecution told the jury that Ryder came to Saks with larceny on her mind, bringing shopping bags, a garment bag and scissors to snip security tags off items.

"She came, she stole, she left. End of story," deputy district attorney, Ann Rundle, said in her closing argument. "Nowhere does it say people steal because they have to. People steal out of greed, envy, spite, because it's there, or for the thrill."

Jurors were shown a video recording of Ryder moving through the store, laden with goods, and Saks security workers testified that, after she was detained, she apologetically told them a director had told her to shoplift to prepare for a movie role.

Her attorney denounced the security guards as liars, even before the trial began.

At the start of her shopping trip, Ryder paid more than $3,000 for a jacket and two blouses. The defence said that Ryder believed the store would keep her account "open" while she shopped and would charge her later. But there was no evidence of an account.

In his closing arguments on Monday, her defence attorney, Mark Geragos, suggested that the store, in trying to avoid a lawsuit, had conspired with employees to invent a story that would make Ryder appear to be a thief and a vandal.

Geragos ridiculed the charge that Ryder had vandalised the merchandise by cutting holes in the clothes when removing the security tags.

"This woman is known for her fashion sense," he said. "Was she going to start a new line of 'Winona wear' with holes in it?"

Geragos carried a hair bow, that Ryder had allegedly stolen, across to her in the courtroom, and placed it on her head, saying, "Can anyone see Ms. Ryder with this on top of her head? Does that make sense?" Settlement talks between the defence and the prosecution failed, but, just before trial, the district attorney's office agreed to dismiss a drug charge, after a doctor said he had given her the two pills found in her possession when she was arrested.

The 12-member jury included several people with Hollywood connections, among them producer Peter Guber, the head of Mandalay Entertainment, and a former head of Sony Entertainment Pictures. Hollywood had raised a collective eyebrow at the inclusion of Guber, who had presided over Sony at the time that three successful Ryder films were made there.

Ryder has made more than 20 films since 1986, including Beetlejuice, Heathers, Mermaids, Little Women, The Age of Innocence, Edward Scissorhands, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Reality Bites and Mr. Deeds. She received an Academy Award best actress nomination for Little Women, and best supporting actress nomination for The Age of Innocence. In 1993, Ryder posted a $200,000 reward in the kidnap-murder case of a 12-year-old girl, Polly Klaas, in Petaluma, California, where the actress grew up. When Ryder was charged with shoplifting, Polly's father, Mark, came to legal proceedings to support her.