Charges Mean Unhappy Days for Actress

Who among us, jarred awake in the middle of the night by a neighbor’s blaring car alarm, hasn’t lain there wishing someone would blow the wretched thing to smithereens?

But who among us has actually grabbed a shotgun, gone outside and blasted the noisy alarm into silence?

Actress Roz Kelly did, according to authorities who have charged the former “Happy Days” star with three felony firearms counts stemming from a shooting rampage outside her North Hollywood home.

Kelly, 56, will be arraigned Monday in Van Nuys Superior Court on charges she shot up two neighbors’ cars and then fired into one of their homes after allegedly being repeatedly awakened by a wailing car alarm.

Best known for her role as Pinky Tuscadero, Fonzie’s biker girlfriend in the 1973-84 television series, Kelly has remained in jail in lieu of $305,000 bail since the Nov. 29 incident in the 5600 block of Lemp Avenue.

Witnesses say that Kelly shot from the hip as she pumped buckshot into an Acura owned by neighbor Maximino Morales and a Mercury Topaz belonging to another neighbor, Phil Soinski.

Then she allegedly walked up to Soinski’s home, smashed a window with the barrel of the 12-gauge Winchester shotgun, and fired into his living room.

The three live in a single-story fourplex apartment building on a street marked by prominent Neighborhood Watch signs, half a block from the North Hollywood police station.

In comments published by a national tabloid, Kelly explained that she “just snapped” after the car alarm kept going off and keeping her awake.

She said she was trying to catch up on sleep she missed the previous night because of the alarm when it went off once more, awakening her from a deep slumber.

“I walked out the door of my home, aimed the shotgun at the car and started shooting from the hip like there was no tomorrow,” Kelly is quoted by the National Enquirer.

Kelly said she suffers chronic pain from a knee injury she suffered in the early 1980s and from eight subsequent surgeries.

“I never meant to become Annie Oakley and shoot up the town--I just wanted to escape from the pain, which is constant,” she said.

Soinski, a vocational occupation counselor, said he returned from a Thanksgiving trip to find his property shot up.

“I’ve heard of people going after cars with a sledgehammer, but not a gun,” said Soinski--who declined to discuss the case while it is pending, except to say it was Morales’ alarm that angered Kelly.

But Morales, a wholesale leather salesman, denied that his car alarm malfunctioned. Morales--who said he has been offered up to $3,000 by tabloid television shows to tell his part of the story--left his apartment with his wife to go to breakfast moments before the shooting started.

In testimony during Kelly’s Jan. 11 preliminary hearing, Morales recounted how he looked back and saw Kelly standing next to his car with a shotgun.

“She shot the driver’s side of the window. She shot twice after that,” Morales testified. “She got between the two cars and shot again. She hit the dashboard, the mirror and the air bag on the passenger side.”

Morales said he ran to the nearby police station after that to summon help. Damage to his car totaled $3,321, he said.

Neighbor Hamlet Petrosyan testified in the preliminary hearing that the gunfire awakened him in time to see Kelly break Soinski’s window and shoot inside.

Kelly’s court-appointed lawyer did not return telephone calls this week seeking comment. But prosecutors said the charges of shooting at cars and homes are considered extremely serious ones.

The high bail that has kept Kelly at the Twin Towers jail is typical for such cases, Deputy Dist. Atty. John K. Spillane said Thursday.

Kelly will enter her plea at Monday’s arraignment and the issue of bail will be discussed at that time, Spillane said.

He said Kelly could be sentenced to up to six years in state prison if found guilty--although she could also be given probation with credit for the time she has served in County Jail if it is found that extenuating circumstances such as her mental state contributed to the shooting rampage.

Soinski suggested that could end up being a factor.

“You’re not dealing with a rational person,” he said of his neighbor.