"Homeless" Winona to Stand Trial

While Winona Ryder does indeed remain free on bail, a Beverly Hills judge on Thursday ruled the 30-year-old actress must stand trial on charges she lifted, instead of shopped, at the 90210-based Saks Fifth Avenue last December.

It was the latest, toughest development in another tough day in court for the Reality Bites star.

Three days after Ryder was said to have had her arm fractured by a wayward TV camera on her way into the courtroom, the twotime Oscar nominee had to sit and listen to three Saks employees, in their pretrial testimony, describe her as a security-tag-cutter and a "homeless person."

Adding injury to insult, Ryder's bum arm, now housed in a sling, acted up, causing her pain and, at one point, prompting her to ask for a five-minute recess.

And how was your day? Ryder's went like this:

Superior Court Judge Elden S. Fox opened the session by reminding media types to remain at least 10 feet away from Ryder, lest they again whack her arm. (The limb was originally injured last year during the filming of Mr. Deeds, Ryder's upcoming comedy with Adam Sandler.)

While reporters were under orders to hold fire, the prosecution--and its witnesses--took shots at her all day.

Kenneth Evans, a security manager at Saks, concluded his testimony from Monday, telling the court that when he first saw Ryder on his video monitor in the upscale department store last December 12, he mistook the bag-toting lady for, yes, a real-live bag lady.

"When I began to watch the defendant, absolutely I thought she was a homeless person," Evans said.

As might be expected, Ryder's camp didn't take kindly to that remark, with defense attorney Mark Geragos pointedly noting that his client wasn't exactly dressed like a "homeless person."

"Do you get a lot of homeless people wearing three-quarter-length cashmere coats?" Geragos asked. (Unfortunately, an objection prevented Evans from answering this intriguing question.)

Another Saks employee, Colleen Rainey, said she watched Ryder cut her finger as she cut the security tags off two purses, tried to cut the tags off two more purses, and then stuffed purses, socks and a hair bow into one of her aforementioned bags. Rainey said Ryder did this cutting and stuffing in a dressing room. And Rainey said she was able to see all this because she spied on Ryder through the slats in her dressing-room door.

Evans testified that he did not see Ryder do any tag-cutting on his security cam because Saks does not have security cams in the dressing rooms. (It just has people outside watching you through the slats.)

Defense attorney Geragos tried to get Evans to admit he targeted Ryder because she was a celeb and asked if Saks workers were on a mission to bust a celeb during the Christmas shopping season. Evans copped to no such thing.

Ryder is accused of shoplifting about $6,000 (up from the earlier figure of $4,800) worth of merchandise from Saks. In all, she faces charges of grand theft, second-degree burglary, vandalism and unlawful possession of the prescription painkiller oxycodone. Geragos has insisted she is innocent and the whole thing is a misunderstanding.

Per today's ruling, Ryder is next due in court for arraignment on June 14--two weeks before the opening of Mr. Deeds.