Celebrity Justice : When Laws Are Broken, Fame Isn’t the Shield It Used to Be

Cynthia Garvey went to jail. The Godfather of Soul is already there. Leona and Zsa Zsa are about to receive their sentences. Rob Lowe has already served his.

What’s going on?

Celebrity justice. Or maybe it’s celebrity in justice.

In the old days, that meant one lenient set of laws for the famous and a harsher set of laws for everyone else. Even now, we think celebrities are no more equal in the eyes of Lady Justice than they are to the maitre d’ at Spago. We expect those privileged enough to enjoy the perks that accompany wealth or fame to obey the law. And we know that when they don’t, their high-priced lawyers and high-placed connections will get them off.

But not anymore. Increasingly, well-known people who get into legal trouble are having a harder time getting out of it, judging by the growing list of Who’s Who offenders--O.J. Simpson (spousal battery), Eugene Fodor Jr. (breaking and entering), Todd Bridges (bomb threat), Sean Penn (probation violations), Jan-Michael Vincent (drunk driving), Tony Danza (assault).

Plenty of Court Time

Some celebrities have spent more time in criminal courts than on the tennis courts, or maybe it just seems that way because of all the media attention their cases generate. And with so many stars ordered to perform community service, perhaps Hollywood has decided to put George Bush’s “1,000 points of light” program of volunteerism out of business.

Take last Friday, for instance.

While a Beverly Hills jury was ending Gabor’s media miniseries, on the other side of town David Carradine was pleading no contest to driving under the influence of alcohol.

And though no one condones that kind of activity, legal experts say Carradine was handed a harsher-than-average sentence, even for a second-time offender: three years’ summary probation, 48 hours in jail, 100 hours of community service, 30 days’ work picking up trash for the California Department of Transportation, attendance at a drunk driving awareness meeting and completion of an alcohol rehabilitation program.

Unusual? Maybe not, according to Hollywood lawyers, publicists and managers.

Could it be that officials seek out star offenders just to make examples of them? Do courts crack down harder on personalities than their crimes warrant? And who really benefits from pursuing a celebrity’s case--the public, a politically ambitious prosecutor, or even the celebrity?

‘Worst Kind of Position’

“I think the worst kind of position you can be in is to be a celebrity charged with a crime,” declared lawyer Harland Braun, whose clients have included director John Landis of “Twilight Zone” trial fame.

“Because what would be a normal disposition in a regular case might not be available to a celebrity because everyone’s afraid of being criticized for looking like they were giving someone special treatment.”

Howard Weitzman, known as the celebrities’ favorite lawyer what with a client list including Sean Penn, O.J. Simpson, John DeLorean and Mike Tyson, believes that “prosecutors take a harder look at situations where a high-profile personality is involved. And (whether) they pursue it sometimes depends on whether or not they have a need to satisfy their own ego and get their name in the spotlight.”

Speaking of spotlights, surely Gabor must be in a special category all her own: perhaps the only celebrity in recent memory who relished going on trial for the resulting publicity.

“Let’s face it,” said her Beverly Hills prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Elden Fox, “this is the greatest thing to happen to that post-menopausal lady’s career. But should we just not prosecute someone like this because of who they are?”

Naturally, Prince Frederick von Anhalt believes a VIP like his wife deserves VIP justice.

“I think the rich and famous should be treated differently when they do something wrong. They bring the money into Beverly Hills,” he declared, vowing to spirit away his convicted cop-slapper to a European castle rather than see her rot in jail.

Some Take Their Chances

But those stars who don’t have a Bavarian bungalow to flee to must take their chances with the law like everyone else.

“There is no question that the public perception is that a celebrity can get off easier. And there is no question that it’s absolutely not true,” maintains criminal lawyer to the stars Robert Shapiro, who has defended Johnny Carson and F. Lee Bailey on drunk driving charges.

“I’d go so far to say that two cases being equal, one involving a celebrity and the other not, the ordinary citizen has a much better chance of getting a better result.”

Just look, Shapiro says, at Jose Canseco’s recent brushes with the law.

First, the Oakland Athletics outfielder was ticketed for speeding in his native Florida. Then he received four more tickets while driving in Arizona. Last April, he was arrested in San Francisco after a passer-by reported seeing a semiautomatic pistol on the floor of his parked Jaguar. Most recently, he was issued a ticket for speeding through Northern California in his 1989 Porsche.

“I’ve even had reporters call me late at night at home asking for my reaction to Canseco getting stopped for having tinted windows on his car,” an exasperated Shapiro recalled. “They were all very minor things that would ordinarily not cause any attention by anyone. But if you’re one of the most valuable players in baseball, then they become very important.”

According to Shapiro, Canseco lost two major endorsement contracts because of the handgun incident, which occurred when Canseco was having an X-ray of his injured wrist at an office building owned by the University of California.

“He was charged with a section of the law I and almost everyone else I know in the field of criminal law was unaware of: bringing a gun on a public school campus, which is a straight felony,” Shapiro explained.

The attorney also claimed that while “anyone else” would have been released on a written promise to appear in court, Canseco had to post $5,000 bail. And, Shapiro noted, the seemingly simple case proved “difficult to resolve.” In the end, Conseco pleaded no contest and received a six-month suspended jail term, three years’ probation and 80 hours of community service.

“An ordinary person under those same facts would never be prosecuted like that,” Shapiro contended. “So obviously you come to the conclusion that celebrities can be treated differently.”

Criminal attorney Floyd Seigel found himself in a similar situation this summer representing Griffin O’Neal, the troubled son of actor Ryan O’Neal, after the 24-year-old was arrested by Los Angeles police on suspicion of drunk driving.

O’Neal already had made headlines for his part in the boating death of the son of film director Francis Ford Coppola on Memorial Day, 1986, in Maryland. Found guilty of reckless boating, O’Neal was given a sentence of 400 hours of community service.

But because of the case’s notoriety, Seigel claims the Los Angeles city attorney’s office was operating under the misconception that the Maryland accident was alcohol-related and therefore was seeking a “severe” punishment against O’Neal in the form of substantial jail time.

It was only, Seigel says, after he set the city attorney’s office straight by obtaining the transcripts from the Maryland proceedings that a plea bargain could be worked out. Finally, in August, O’Neal’s sentence included 160 hours of community service, about $800 in fines, a 90-day alcohol education program and a 3-month license restriction.

Hollywood producer Jay Bernstein, too, believes Stacy Keach “got a bad deal” when the actor was ordered to serve a six-month jail sentence in England for smuggling cocaine at London’s Heathrow Airport in 1984. Bernstein, who produced the “Mike Hammer” TV series starring Keach, is convinced the actor was made an example of because the drug issue had become a hot topic in British newspapers just a few weeks before his arrest.

“It was just a very bad environment,” Bernstein recalled. “If it had been Joe Keach or Bill Keach or somebody else, they would have just made him pay a fine. But it was such a wonderful thing for the authorities to be able to say that Mike Hammer does drugs.”

Meanwhile, the controversy still swirls over whether singer James Brown and director Roman Polanski got raw deals with the law. The state Senate in West Virginia even passed a resolution urging the governor of South Carolina to show some soul and pardon Brown, who was sentenced to a 6-year jail term for trying to run over two policemen during a two-state car chase last fall.

At the same time, Polanski’s friends are seeking ways to bring back the director from his exile in Paris where he fled an almost certain prison term in 1978 after pleading guilty in a Santa Monica criminal court to a felony morals charge. So far, Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner’s office hasn’t budged, according to sources.

The reason, says USC law professor Martin Levine, is this country’s “long tradition in law enforcement of looking at cases that have special deterrent value. Some agencies specifically go after names so people will read about them and feel deterred. It’s almost as if officials are delighted to prosecute them because of the publicity value.”

Still, that doesn’t mean stars get worse than they deserve, Martin believes.

“I think celebrities are treated much more equally in the criminal justice system than almost any other institution in America. They’re more likely to get deferential treatment in a restaurant than in jail.”

One place where star offenders aren’t treated the same as everyone else is in the media. Even deputy district attorney Fox acknowledges that “I can’t sit here and tell you that media notoriety doesn’t affect participants in the case, including prosecutors.”

Of course, celebrities didn’t always have to worry about their foul plays making news.

“Back in the early days when they were protected by studios, high-powered attorneys and well-connected people, celebrities had it easier,” said veteran Hollywood publicist Lee Solters.

But, starting in the mid-1970s, the rules changed drastically.

“Watergate is what started all this,” Bernstein said. “Before Watergate, all the celebrities I knew were able to get away with everything except murder. But ever since Richard Nixon was caught doing something wrong, that gave the media the power to go after everybody. It showed that if you can topple the President of the United States, then you can certainly nail a star.”

Now the situation is even more complicated, what with the increase in media competition and the onset of the computer age. No doubt celebrities may have it tougher today because there are so many more magazines, newspapers and TV shows competing with one another for the low-down on the highly placed.

“You can’t win ratings or readers by saying how many happy people there are. You have to find the worst-case scenario,” Bernstein explained.

Several lawyers acknowledge that they almost always recommend a plea bargain to their celebrity clients even when they’re confident of an acquittal if the case were to go to trial.

“Because of what recently has been demonstrated, that these court proceedings turn into media circuses, celebrities are disinclined to fight charges,” Shapiro noted. “That’s something no ordinary person has to face.”

Yet Fox maintains that celebrities who do choose a trial have the resources to make prosecutions “much more difficult than under normal circumstances. I remember that when Johnny Carson was arrested for drunk driving in 1982, he was prepared to bring in the manufacturer of the intoximeter from Europe.” In the end, Carson pleaded no contest.

Also, thanks to computers, reporters need only input a star’s name to get the electronic equivalent of a rap sheet.

“In the ‘40s or ‘50s or ‘60s, people could do things that nobody would ever know. Now they have computers snapping at their ankles and dredging up all this stuff,” Bernstein complained.

True, the fact that Fatty Arbuckle’s career was ruined by scandal in 1921 when he went on trial for manslaughter was the exception rather than the rule years ago. In 1942, Errol Flynn weathered charges of statutory rape of two teen-age girls aboard his yacht (he was subsequently tried and acquitted). And Robert Mitchum’s career is still going strong despite the actor’s arrest and jailing in 1948 for conspiracy to possess marijuana.

Even so, there are even recent examples of well-known people for whom the scales of justice tilt in their favor, though probably none more lopsided than Ted Kennedy’s escaping a manslaughter indictment for the drowning death of Mary Jo Kopechne.

This year, as a signal of changing attitudes about celebrity crimes on the 20th anniversary of the Chappaquiddick incident, members of the grand jury that investigated Kennedy’s role admitted there was “definitely a cover-up.” And the Boston Herald, aware that the Kennedys are no longer the sacred cows they were back in 1969, has called for a new official probe.

Last year, the family of the two women killed in a head-on car crash in Northern Ireland with movie actor Matthew Broderick said they found it “incredible” that serious charges of causing death by careless driving were dropped against the star. And they decried the decision to fine Broderick $175 on a lesser charge as “a travesty of justice.”

And Howard Rollins, an Academy Award nominee and star of NBC’s “In the Heat of the Night” dramatic series, received in 1988 what was considered a lighter-than-usual sentence for cocaine possession, driving while intoxicated and speeding. A Louisiana judge gave him two years’ probation and ordered him to make an anti-drug video.

Another piece de resistance of “easy” punishment was that of Geraldine Ferraro’s son, John Zaccaro Jr., who was convicted of selling cocaine to an undercover Vermont police officer. His sentence--120 days in jail--was widely criticized as being too lenient. The outcry became even louder when officials placed Zaccaro in a special house arrest program that let him stay in a posh $1,500-a-month apartment complete with color television and maid service.

That issue came up again in the 1987 controversy over where Sean Penn would serve his time. Handed a 60-day sentence for a probation violation, the punch-prone actor wanted to avoid Los Angeles County’s overcrowded central jail, filled with hardened criminals. Instead, his savvy attorney, Howard Weitzman, got the best cell money could buy--in this instance, a $50-a-night dorm room in the Mono County lock-up in the mountain resort town of Bridgeport.

As a result, there doesn’t seem to be any reason for attorney Shapiro to make any changes in a lecture he likes to give before California trial attorney meetings.

“I tell them about the three biggest lies I’ve ever heard,” Shapiro recounted. “The first is, ‘I’m from the IRS, and I’m here to help you.’ The second is a little bit off-color.

“And the third one is that, if you’re defending a celebrity, then no one is going to treat this case any differently than any other.”