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LONDON - Naomi Campbell has asked a New York judge to be able to carry out her community service indoors as punishment for assaulting one of her staff.
A lawyer for the supermodel, who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour charge of reckless assault in New York after she
threw a mobile phone at her housekeeper, said it would not be safe for his client to pay for her offence by carrying out community service such as street sweeping.
Following a plea bargain with prosecutors at Manhattan Criminal Court, she was sentenced to five days' community service and a two-day anger management course, and ordered to pay medical bills of US$363.33 ($530) for her injured housekeeper, who was hurt when Campbell threw a mobile phone.
In court, Campbell admitted throwing the phone in her Park Avenue apartment but said she did not intend it to hit maid Ana Scolavino, who needed four stitches after the incident.
She said: "I am advised that Ana was hurt, and I am deeply sorry about that."
Sporting a short bobbed haircut with a fringe, and wearing a pencil skirt, 4in heels and a voluminous Louis Vuitton jacket, Campbell told the judge: "I have an apartment at 500 Park Avenue.
"Ana Scolavino was an employee of mine.
"During the morning of March 30, 2006, I threw a cellphone in the apartment.
"The cellphone hit Ana.
"That was an accident because I did not intend to hit her."The model's lawyer, David Breitbart, asked that her community service be an indoor task rather than something like sweeping the streets.
This was for Campbell's safety, he explained.
Judge Robert Mandelbaum said he would note the request.
Assistant District Attorney Shanda Strain said: "If that's what is available at the time she goes to do the community service that is acceptable."
Outside court, Mr Breitbart said his client had been "very anxious to get this over".
Campbell, 36, is no stranger to controversy and has blamed her hot temper on lingering resentment toward her father for abandoning her as a child.
In June, a second maid, Gaby Gibson, said the celebrity struck her in the head.
She has also filed a civil lawsuit accusing Campbell of personal injury, employment discrimination, civil assault and battery.
In July, former assistant Amanda Black also sued Campbell, saying she was subjected to a series of "verbal, physical and emotional attacks" by the model shortly after she was hired by her in February of 2005.
Campbell was arrested in October in London on suspicion of assault after a woman alleged she had been attacked at a London residence.
Campbell's spokesman said the model had done nothing wrong and there had been a misunderstanding.
In February 2000, she pleaded guilty in a Canadian court for assaulting another former assistant with a telephone.
In that case she paid the assistant an undisclosed amount of money and attended anger management classes.
Spotted on the streets of London's Covent Garden tourist area when she was 15, Campbell was the first black model to the grace covers of French and British Vogue.
She has acted in several films, co-wrote a novel and launched her own cosmetics products.
- INDEPENDENT
