Probation for the Sticky-Fingered Minx

Winona Ryder was given probation for her shoplifting conviction today:

Actress Winona Ryder was spared jail time on Friday for shoplifting thousands of dollars in designer goods, but was ordered by a Beverly Hills judge to serve three years probation and undergo counseling to come to grips with a guilt she refuses to admit.

Ryder was sentenced during a contentious hearing in which her attorney and a prosecutor traded bitter accusations, the judge upbraided her for refusing to accept responsibility and a lawyer for Saks Fifth Avenue branded her a “movie star thief.”

The 31-year-old actress, dressed in black, made no statement to the court but wore a pained expression through most of the hearing and at one point leaped from her seat in shock, her mouth dropping open, when Deputy District Attorney Ann Rundle accused the defense of “trotting out” the specter of a dead girl as a ploy to win the judge’s sympathy.

Ryder was convicted on Nov. 6 of grand theft and felony vandalism for stealing more than $5,560 in goods and damaging a $795 Calvin Klein purse during a Dec. 12, 2001 shoplifting spree at the Saks Fifth Avenue branch in Beverly Hills.

Superior Court Judge Elden Fox, who could have sentenced Ryder to prison, instead imposed probation and 480 hours of community service. Fox also ordered the “Girl, Interrupted” star to pay more than $6,300 in restitution to the Beverly Hills store, plus $3,700 in fines to the court.

All of that is interesting and whatnot, but here is the real poop:

Rundle disclosed that Ryder had been involved three times since May 2000 in suspected shoplifting incidents at other posh stores, but was never charged. The prosecutor said outside court that “the only issue remaining is whether Miss Ryder will stop pointing fingers at others and examine her own behavior.”

I guess so.

And, seemingly inevitably, drugs are also involved. Time to grow up Miss Ryder.