USA: Actor Russell Crowe given conditional discharge after pleading guilty to charges he threw a telephone at an employee of a New York hotel

Academy Award-winning actor Russell Crowe pleaded guilty on Friday to reduced misdemeanour charges for hitting a hotel clerk with a telephone in June and was fined $160 and told to stay out of trouble. Crowe, the star of such movies as "A Beautiful Mind" and "Gladiator," was given a conditional discharge by Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Kathryn Freed and told he must avoid arrest for a year. The New Zealand native and his wife battled a horde of aggressive media on arrival at the criminal courthouse Friday (November 18) for the hearing. He admitted to using a phone to assault a hotel employee but said nothing else. He could have faced up to one year in prison on the reduced charges. Crowe originally was charged with a felony assault and criminal possession of a weapon -- the phone -- and could have faced up to seven years in jail if convicted. After sentencing was handed down, Crowe kissed his wife Danielle Spencer -- the woman he was trying to call before using the phone in frustration as a weapon -- before leaving the court without talking to reporters. Crowe's lawyer, Gerald Lefcourt, said that if the actor was arrested again in the coming year, he would face the original felony charges. He said the outcome of Friday's hearing meant Crowe was free to travel and work in America. In August, Crowe settled a civil lawsuit stemming from the June 6 assault on Nestor Estrada at the trendy Mercer Hotel. Local tabloids reported Crowe paid about $100,000 to settle the civil lawsuit. The incident took place shortly after 4 a.m. when Crowe returned to the trendy SoHo hotel after promoting the the movie "Cinderella Man." He became irritated when Estrada was unable to put through a call to Crowe's wife in Australia. Upset, Crowe pulled the telephone out of the wall, went to the lobby, argued with Estrada and threw the phone at him. The New Yorker magazine reported that Crowe was enraged because the hotel clerk dismissed his frustration by saying "Whatever," an indifferent put-down.

ITN Source | November 23, 2005

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