Naomi admits hitting her maid with cellphone

British supermodel Naomi Campbell on Tuesday admitted that she had hit her housekeeper with a jewel-encrusted cellphone over a pair of missing jeans, putting an end to nearly a year long saga that made her more famous as a defendant than a supermodel.

Clad in a tight-fitting black dress, stiletto heels and waist-length jacket and several gold chains around her neck, the London-born model appeared at Manhattan Criminal Court and pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault for hitting her Chilean-born former maid, Ana Scolavino, who needed four stitches in her head. She apologized to Ana Scolavino.

“During the morning of March 30, 2006, I threw a cell phone in the apartment. The cell phone hit Ana. That was an accident because I did not intend to hit her,” she told the Manhattan judge, Robert Mandelbaum. “I am advised that Ana was hurt, and I am sorry about that.”

The 36-year-old beauty was arrested after Ms Scolavino claimed that the model hurled the phone at her after accusing her of stealing the jeans she planned to wear on the Oprah Winfrey television talk show.

She was originally charged with second-degree assault, a felony that carries a minimum sentence of one year and a maximum of seven years in prison.

In exchange for her guilty plea, Campbell has been handed a five-day community service sentence and ordered to attend a two-day anger management classes, the second since year 2000. Besides, she was ordered to pay $363.32 to reimburse medical expenses incurred by Ms Scolavino.

Though the authorities have not yet disclosed the type of work Campbell would have to perform during five day community service, but she would possibly avoid the humiliating punishment of Boy George, the former singer with Culture Club, who last year was forced to sweep the streets to settle drug charges in New York, as the judge recommended that she serve her sentence indoors.

Campbell's lawyer, David Breitbart asked the judge to allow Campbell up to 120 days to fulfill her community service as the model has some fashion commitments. After modeling at the New York Fashion Week next month Campbell is due to travel to California and Brazil and then appear in fashion week events in London, Paris and Milan.

The 36 years old model did not speak to nearly 100 members of the media, who gathered outside the courtroom to cover the event, and left the courthouse in a black Cadillac Escalade.

Later her publicist, Howard Bragman, issued a statement in which the model said, "I pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour in court. That's the best way I know to say I'm sorry to Ana. I accepted responsibility and I'm prepared to take my punishment. But I'm not going to let this incident define me. The past is the past. My future holds great things and I'm getting on with my life."

Campbell has a history of scuffles with her employees and associates. Some of them even filed lawsuit against her. In 2000, she pleaded guilty in a Toronto court to a 1998 assault on Georgina Galanis, her then assistant, whom she had assaulted with a telephone in a hotel room and threatened to throw her out of a moving car. The Canadian court then ordered her to attend anger management classes.

In March 2005, she had allegedly slapped assistant Amanda Brack. Italian actress Yvonne Scio has claimed the model left her "covered in blood" after an altercation at the five-star Hotel Eden in Rome.

One more employee, Amanda Brack, who claims that the model abused her verbally and physically, has recently sued the model in New York.