Former Miss Russia faces drug and shoplifting charges and deportation if convicted of these crimes. Hit the jump to read the rest fo the story.
A troubled former Miss Russia faces drug and shoplifting charges – and deportation if convicted of a crime, her lawyer said Tuesday.
“She can’t take a plea,” defense attorney Robert Gottlieb said of blond beauty Anna Malova. “She’d be deported.”
Malova, who won the Miss Russia crown in 1998, is here on a green card. She would be shipped to her native land if she is branded a criminal, Gottlieb said.
Her lawyer has been fighting to get the three pending cases against Malova – two for allegedly forging prescription drugs and a newer shoplifting case – shifted to a Manhattan court-supervised drug-rehab program, where the charges could be dismissed if she gets clean.
But Malova isn’t making it easy for him.
“My lawyer is going to kill me,” Assistant District Attorney Erin Satterthwaite said Malova told cops when she was nabbed for allegedly filching sandals and a hat worth $145 at a E. 14th St. discount clothing store on April 26.
“I don’t’ know what came over me, I was feeling ill and I took the stuff,” Malova added as she tried to wriggle out of the theft case, according to the prosecutor. “Is there any way I can just pay double?”
Satterwaite repeated the comments to a Manhattan Criminal Court judge Tuesday as Malova was arraigned on theft charges in the case.
Malova, 39, was jailed earlier this month after arriving late for a court-ordered evaluation related to two earlier prescription-pill busts.
She appeared before the judge in blue jeans and prison-issued slippers – a far cry from the designer threads and towering heels she used to wear to court.
