Charity Work Still a Goal for Tina Schafnitz

For jailed Newport Beach socialite Tina Schafnitz, it was a welcome bit of luck: She wouldn’t be celebrating her 15th wedding anniversary alone.

On Friday, three days into a 10-month sentence for selling cocaine to an undercover police officer, Schafnitz met with her husband, Matt--who brought her a bouquet of flowers and a greeting card--at the James A. Musick Branch Jail, just outside Irvine.

“He promised me a 15-carat [diamond] for this anniversary,” she said. “He told me he might give me one when I get out. You can’t wear jewelry here.”

The occasion also marked her 39th birthday and the first time she was permitted to receive visitors.

Gone, of course, is the stylish, upswept hairdo and fashionable clothing that were her trademark at charity events. In their place: a severe ponytail, olive-drab uniform and dark, lug-sole shoes.

Gone too are the into-the-night social schedule and leisurely mornings at her Newport Beach estate.

These days, it’s lights out at 9 p.m. and wake-up calls at 2:30 a.m.

“I have kitchen duty; I get up at 2:30 a.m. to clean, chop and cook until 10:30 a.m.,” she said. “It’s OK here, but I miss my life, my husband, my boys.”

Schafnitz, a mother of two young sons, pleaded guilty two weeks ago to selling $1,000 worth of cocaine to an undercover police officer. She also admitted having a handgun in her Mercedes-Benz during the transaction.

Besides the jail time, she must pay a $5,000 fine and serve three years’ probation.

She began using cocaine about a year ago, she explained, “because it gave me a lift.”

“I only used it about twice a month,” she said.

For two years, she kept the gun in the trunk of her car for self-defense purposes, she said. The way she understood it, “you can get a license to carry a gun if you have more than $200,000” on your person. Counting her “diamond tennis bracelet, diamond wedding rings, Rolex watch” and other pieces of fine jewelry, she wore that amount, she said.

Rising from a chair in a holding area of the visitors’ quarters, a bare-faced Schafnitz greets this reporter the way she frequently has for 12 years at charity events--enthusiastically, with a quick hug.

How are you? “Good,” she answers.

A guard approaches, telling her not to speak until she has been formally seated in a steel-gray chair at a long, beige Formica table.

This is one of several visiting session rules that Schafnitz and her family and friends must learn.

Others: “One closed-mouth kiss and one hug across the table is allowed at the beginning and end of each visit,” a brochure reads.

“No physical contact other than holding hands may occur while the visit is taking place.”

“The hands of the inmate and visitor must remain centered on top of the table at all times.”

Nodding at the female guard, Schafnitz obediently folds her French-manicured fingers in her lap and stares ahead.

It is not a bad view. Like a dining room table at home, the reception desk in the visitors’ area is decorated with a vase of spring flowers.

Outside, roses bloom in the gardens that dot the jail facility, where more than 1,000 men and one-tenth as many women are doing time for drug, drunken driving and other offenses.

Lemon-yellow chrysanthemums border the walkways of this quiet place, where inmates can earn industrial sewing certificates and work the fertile soil. If not for the tall chain-link fences--topped with angry looking loops of barb wire--surrounding the property, it would seem to be a sprawling farm.

In most ways, Schafnitz seems like her old self--the large doe-eyes are bright with enthusiasm, concern. The smile is ready, hopeful.

But there is a weariness about her, a posture of resignation, a sense that she is at once sad and relieved that it has finally come to this.

“After I get out of here, I plan to continue my charity work,” she said, “Childhelp USA, the Short Stature Foundation.”

Perhaps now, because of this opportunity for self-examination, this chance to make amends, she has begun a walk that will lead her to the best years of her life.

“Oh yes,” she says. “I have the Lord in my heart and I’m praying I’ll get through this and back with my boys.”