Robe-o-Cop : Nearly Nude Actress Is Arrested Trying to Avert Truck’s Seizure

Confusion cloaks the case that sent nearly naked film and television actress Anna Nicholas to jail.

Santa Monica police say Nicholas, 36, is to blame for letting a movie crew cover part of her truck’s license plate. Nicholas blames police for not letting her cover herself outside her apartment.

And on Tuesday, neither side in Santa Monica’s strange saga of disputed license plates and bathrobes was ready to throw in the towel.

Nicholas, 36, said that a towel was all she had to cover her body last week when police allegedly dragged her down her street, barefoot and screaming, after they discovered that the rear license plate on her truck was partially altered with tape.

Santa Monica police contend that they were only doing their duty in confiscating a vehicle that might have been stolen or used in a crime. Numbers and letters on the plate were altered with tape to change Os to Qs and an S to an 8.

They say they arrested Nicholas on charges of altering the plate and interfering with officers after she became very argumentative.

Nicholas said she had just stepped from the shower last Wednesday morning when a neighbor called to warn her that someone was tampering with her pickup. Wrapping herself in a bath towel, Nicholas said, she looked out a second-floor window and asked what was going on.

When Officers Ron Franzen and David Enriquez motioned for her to come down, she said she ran outside with one towel wrapped around her body and another around her head.

In the street, Nicholas denied knowledge of the phony license plate. She said that when she tried to look inside the cab for signs of damage, the officers abruptly grabbed her and handcuffed her arms behind her back, causing her towel to drop as a gaping crowd of neighbors looked on in amazement.

A neighbor, Kathleen Detoro, told officers she was certain the truck belonged to Nicholas because she had accompanied the actress to the car dealership last fall to buy it.

“I ran in and called 911 and told them that they were handcuffing a woman wearing only a towel,” Detoro said Tuesday.

Nicholas said she tried to hold up the towel with her teeth as she was driven in a patrol car to the station, where she was booked and jailed for seven hours.

“There were no seat belts,” Nicholas said. “I was afraid we’d get in a crash and I’d be thrown out of the car and then be arrested for being naked.”

Nicholas was released on $5,000 bail after telephoning her agent, Donna Fazzari, who reminded her that her truck had been used a month or so earlier in a movie. Fazzari said that prop masters apparently forgot to remove the tape used to alter the numbers.

Police on Tuesday denied any wrongdoing. In their report, Franzen and Enriquez state that Nicholas was clad in a bathrobe.

But police showed a reporter two terry cloth items, and they both resembled towels.

Police spokesman Sgt. Gary Gallinot defended the arrest and the decision not to allow Nicholas to dress before taking her to jail.

“They were afraid she was going to run away. It could have escalated into something much worse,” Gallinot said.

Nicholas said the police report of her bathrobe is particularly galling.

“It’s a towel. They’re trying to cover up for themselves,” she said.