It's the best discount famed shopper Winona Ryder may ever get.
In a Beverly Hills court Friday, a judge marked down Ryder's two felony convictions in her notorious shoplifting case to misdemeanors.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elden S. Fox also eased up on the actress' probation, placing her on unsupervised status, a move her attorney said will free her up for more movie work.
Ryder, 32, who was in court, was said to have been in a grateful mood, thanking Fox, the prosecutor who won the convictions against her and even the bailiff, whom Los Angeles' City News Service said she just stopped short of hugging.
In cutting Ryder a break, Fox, who of late has had to tangle with prolific defendant Courtney Love, said the two-time Oscar nominee had completed all of her court-ordered community service (480 hours at an L.A.-area hospital) and paid all of her $10,000-plus in court-ordered fines and restitution.
"He doesn't want to do anything to damage her career," Shepard Kopp, attorney for the onetime It waif, told reporters outside the courtroom. (Ryder was represented at her 2002 trial by power attorney Mark Geragos, recently axed from the Michael Jackson molestation case.)
Having her convictions for grand theft and vandalism minimized to misdemeanors means the Reality Bites star no will longer wear the badge of "convicted felon"--on the official record, anyway. It also means the misdemeanors eventually can be wiped from her record, a common gimme for first-time offenders.
All of this, though, hinges on Ryder steering clear of trouble.
Should she run afoul of the law before December 2005, when her three-year probation period ends, she'll be off to jail, Fox advised her Friday. (If she breaks the law after December 2005, she'll still be in trouble, of course, but she won't start with one strike against her.)
Ryder's current troubles date back to December 2001, when she busted for a $5,000-plus shoplifting spree at the Beverly Hills Saks Fifth Avenue.
Fox cleared up another loose end in the case Friday, ordering the purloined merchandise--$200 hair bows, presumably included--to be destroyed (per Saks' request).
Ryder, whose box-appeal appeal already was flagging prior to her arrest, has not appeared in a studio movie since 2002's barely seen Simone.
Things on that front, however, seem to be improving, as well. She recently began work on the Keanu Reeves sci-fi flick, A Scanner Darkly, costarring former mug-shot models Robert Downey Jr. and Woody Harrelson.