The Bling Ring (34 page)

“I don't want to live on this planet anymore,” said one of the commenters on the clip after it was posted on YouTube.
The Soup
would vote it the best reality show clip of 2010.

30

With the publication of the story, the Bling Ring was in the news again. Since Nick had spoken to a magazine, now all the TV news shows were after him to do an interview. They wanted Nick, and he was torn about whether he should appear on television. He called me and said that Erenstoft was against it. I told him he should listen to his lawyer; but Nick was talking with producers at ABC, too, and they convinced him to go on. I thought he might also still be sold on Erenstoft's idea that he should publicly make amends for his crimes.

Later I would find out that Erenstoft had made a promise to appear on NBC's
Dateline,
and I wondered if that was the real reason he was against Nick appearing on NBC's rival, ABC. But no, Erenstoft said, he was irritated at Nick for “pushing himself out into the limelight. . . . During my representation of Nick,” he said, “I kept observing him chomping at the bit to make public appearances and be captured be paparazzi. This served to complicate my strategy of having Nick be the sympathetic hero who had ratted out his fellow culprits.” I wasn't really sure what any of this had to do with the law. It was Erenstoft who seemed wrapped up in media considerations; or maybe both he and his client were.

George Stephanopoulos—who did the
GMA
interview on February 3, 2010—was tough on Nick. “Nick, you've confessed to the crimes but you're pleading not guilty,” he said. “Are you sorry for what you've done or sorry you got caught?”

“Well I'm definitely sorry for what I've done,” Nick said slowly and deliberately. He was wearing a brown shirt and a bulky silver tie. Suddenly, he didn't look like a teenager anymore. He looked tense and uncomfortable, like a guy who was wearing clothes that didn't belong to him (I have no evidence that that was actually the case).

“I'm trying to take early responsibility for my crimes,” Nick said, “and I'm just trying to make amends with all the victims. I feel really bad for what I did.”

“You're sneaking into people's houses, you're trying to get by security cameras, these are some of the most famous people in the world,” Stephanopoulos said. “In what kind of universe does that feel okay?”

“It wasn't okay. It definitely wasn't okay,” said Nick.

“You seem sincere,” Stephanopoulos said. “But [people] are wondering now, ‘He's confessing now to keep himself out of jail, but once the trial's over he's gonna cash in on what he did.' ”

“I'm not going to try and cash in on what I did,” Nick said. “It's not about that for me. When I confessed, it was for my own conscience and for me to be able to sleep at night. . . . I've just embarrassed myself and my family so much and I'm just really sorry.”

Chris Cuomo, who interviewed Nick on ABC's
20/20
on March 4, 2010, seemed more interested in the wider implications of the story. “Every once and a while there's a crime that goes on even beyond the importance of the facts,” Cuomo said, in his energetic way. “How they did this is very impressive, but the big question that this crime reveals the answer to for us is
why
they would do something like this.

“Where was the shame?” Cuomo asked Nick.

“I guess it really wasn't there,” Nick said, hanging his head.

“Where were their families?” asked Brett Goodkin, who was also interviewed on the show. “As a parent, I would think that if my kid doesn't work, and his closets are full of designer clothing, where is all this stuff coming from?”

“You're the parent. Where were you guys?” Cuomo asked Nick's mother, Melva-Lynn Prugo.

Melva-Lynn started to cry.

“Are the kids sorry?” Cuomo asked. “Don't write them off as just some goofy teens. These kids are a window into this world of celebrity obsession.”

“Damn . . . I wish I was part of ‘the Bling Ring,' ” said a commenter on a YouTube clip from the
20/20
show.

31

On March 13, 2010, Jonathan Ajar pleaded no contest to three felony counts, including possession of cocaine for sale, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, and receiving stolen property. He was sentenced to three years in state prison. “It should be noted that Mr. Ajar was not involved in the residential burglaries and was found to be in possession of some of the items that were later returned,” Michael Goldstein, Ajar's lawyer, told the
Los Angeles Times
. “Unfortunately, because of his prior criminal history, my client was left with little choice but to reach a negotiated agreement with the district attorney.”

“I think Johnny Ajar is misunderstood,” Goldstein told me.

32

On April 9, 2010, NBC
Dateline
's Bling Ring segment aired. Erenstoft figured prominently. Nick did not appear. Erenstoft, looking very square-jawed, held forth on his theories about the robberies. He said, “These kids would wear the fruits of their crimes. That's pretty much a guiding light in trying to help get into the psychology of where this was going. . . . The kids, looking in, [saw] a lifestyle that they wanted to emulate.”

Goodkin was on
Dateline
, too. “This group of criminals was so comfortable,” he said. “It's almost like a sense of entitlement. This house, we have just as much right to be in here than the owner.”

Susan Haber, Jeffrey Rubenstein's colleague, also made an appearance. “Alexis is an eighteen-year-old, bright, educated, and aspiring woman [who wants] to make good with her life and to impact the lives of others in a positive way,” she said.

“Fair to say that she's fascinated with Hollywood celebrities?” asked
Dateline
's Josh Mankiewicz.

“Who isn't?” Jeffrey Rubenstein replied cheerfully. “She's a young, attractive girl whose mother and parents were in the industry. . . .The reality show just happens to be her career. If somebody was an airline pilot and they were facing a criminal charge, would you expect them to stop flying?”

Roy Lopez's lawyer, David Diamond, got a taste of fame as well. Discussing the Bling Ring burglaries on the show, he said, “I think the . . . belief . . . is that you're going to somehow be famous from this incident.”

Around this time Nick called me up and told me he'd really like to write a book about his experiences. Alexis was already shopping a book proposal, which read: “Think
Gossip Girl
goes to Hollywood—it is a cautionary tale as well as a guilty pleasure; the reader is plunged into the crazy, out-of-control world of one of Hollywood's most infamous party girls.”

33

On May 10, 2010, Alexis pleaded no contest to one count of felony burglary and was sentenced to six months in county jail. She received three years probation and agreed to stay away from Orlando Bloom and his house in the Hollywood Hills. Jeffrey Rubenstein told reporters that, while he had been prepared to go to trial, “the fact that Orlando Bloom [would testify], and the weight of a celeb testifying against Alexis, made us realize the odds were stacked against us.”

From the beginning Rubenstein had been rushing Alexis' case through the court, on the grounds of her right to a speedy trial. He told me this strategy, unique among the Bling Ring defendants, was based on his belief that it was better for Alexis to have her proceedings separated from the others, bifurcating her from their hearings. His decision to seek justice quickly also happened to accommodate the
Pretty Wild
shooting schedule; and having Alexis appear in the courtroom alone made her the star of her own legal show. Having the other defendants on camera might have complicated the ability to air the footage, as they might not have wanted to sign releases with
Pretty Wild.
When I asked him about this in an email, Rubenstein declined to comment. The cameras were in the courtroom on the day when Alexis entered her plea. Someone who was there observed that, “After Alexis was sentenced he turned to her and started giving her this fatherly lecture, and the judge just told him to stop it.” Rubenstein had no comment. The deal he got for Alexis was considered favorable to her.

Meanwhile, Alexis continued to maintain her innocence. Before going to jail, she appeared on
E! News
with her mother and Susan Haber. “I didn't do anything wrong!” Alexis said, crying. “No one knows my truth; no one knows my side of the story yet. . . .I keep telling myself, ‘If Buddha can sit under a tree for four days and meditate, I can do this!' ”

She entered the Century Regional Detention Facility in Los Angeles on June 24, 2010. By some strange twist of fate, she was put in the same cell that Paris Hilton had occupied when she was there in 2007 for probation violation. And in an even bolder stroke of starlet irony, Lindsay Lohan was moved into the cell next door to Alexis a few weeks into Alexis' sentence, to serve time for probation violation (she failed to attend her alcohol education classes).

Alexis was released from jail after serving just 29 days. When she came out, the celebrity news shows still wanted to talk to her—but now they wanted to know what it was like to be in jail in a cell next to Lindsay Lohan.

“It was mayhem that day,” when Lindsay entered the jail, Alexis told
E! News
. “It was crazy. She came in, she obviously didn't look happy—it's very scary, you have to go through strip searches, body cavity experiences—it's
not
fun, it's petrifying. And these girls are screaming, ‘I love you Lindsay!' and ‘I want to be your girlfriend!' ”

E!'s Michael Yo remarked that he had heard that Lindsay had been “verbally abused” by other inmates. “Oh, I'm sure,” Alexis said, “just as
I
was. . . .I would have girls come up to my cell door and just
stare
at me.”

34

The celebrity victims came in secret to the Grand Jury proceedings at the Los Angeles Criminal Court on June 18, 21, and 22 of 2010—Paris Hilton, Audrina Patridge, Rachel Bilson, Lindsay Lohan, Orlando Bloom, and Brian Austin Green. They came incognito, some wearing sunglasses, with no media in attendance; it was all very hush-hush. Even TMZ didn't know about it.

Some of the lawyers for the defendants complained that the celebrities were being treated like, well, celebrities. It wasn't actually necessary to have a Grand Jury, since the defendants had already been charged; but in doing so, the D.A. eliminated the possibility of a preliminary hearing. At a preliminary hearing, the celebrities would have been forced to testify in public and potentially treated to a media circus. By testifying in secret, they were protected from this sort of exposure.

“In the bigger picture, I think that this case reveals how political the L.A. D.A.'s office can be,” said Behnam Gharagozli, Diana Tamayo's attorney. “I just don't think the D.A.'s office would have invested as much time, energy, and resources if the alleged victims were regular people. It appears as though there's a double standard for how these alleged victims were treated. If a regular person with Lindsay Lohan's criminal history was allegedly burglarized, I doubt the L.A. D.A.'s office would have cared this much. Lindsay Lohan, however, makes a mockery of the D.A.'s office and yet prosecutors rushed to her aid here. Quite frankly, I think certain individuals in the L.A. D.A.'s office were simply using this case as a means to propel themselves upward, because the case was getting so much media attention and the victims were celebrities.”

“I think that this case was blown out of proportion,” said David Diamond, Roy Lopez's attorney. He called it a “public spectacle,” complete with “bodyguards, court security walking Prugo into court. It became a joke.”

“In L.A., I think the publicity value of the case was to send a message that the [entertainment] industry would not tolerate stalking-type attacks,” said Daniel Horowitz, Nick's lawyer.

When I asked about these criticisms via email, Jane Robison, the Assistant Public Information Officer for the L.A. County District Attorney's Office, wrote, “We can't comment since it's still a pending case and it would [sic] inappropriate.”

35

Deputy District Attorney Sarika Kim was having a different problem with the issue of the celebrity victims during the Grand Jury proceedings. Throughout the three days of testimony, the jurors wanted to ask the victims questions (which are allowed in a grand jury) about why they didn't have better security. They seemed to be suggesting that the victims themselves had been somehow guilty of not protecting their very valuable valuables. They asked Audrina Patridge and Paris Hilton why they hadn't set their alarms and Lindsay Lohan why she didn't know what type of lock was on her safe, a combination or a key. “I think it was a combination
and
a key,” Lohan said, sounding a bit flustered. “I think.”

In her closing statement, the Deputy District Attorney addressed the issue of the victims being rich and famous head-on, arguing that they were still victims of serious crimes, even if they were celebrities. “If the victims can afford to replace their stolen property, guess what? Not an element. Not relevant. Doesn't matter,” said Kim, a tiny, dark-haired woman with a tough, no-nonsense manner.

“The victims should have turned on their alarms?” she asked. “It's commonplace to think, ‘God, why wouldn't somebody turn on their alarm? Why wouldn't someone in this day and age lock their door?' It's fortunate that in this day and age we kind of, as a society, still think, you know, if you want to sit with your porch door open, unlocked, and just let the breeze come in, you can. It doesn't make it okay for somebody to come in and steal your stuff.