When Super Models Attack

Model Naomi Campbell arrested in N.Y.

Thursday, March 30, 2006

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Model Naomi Campbell was arrested Thursday morning after allegedly striking her assistant with a cell phone, New York police said.

"We believe this is a case of retaliation, because Naomi had fired her housekeeper earlier this morning," said a written statement from a spokeswoman for the model, who has appeared on the covers of Vogue and countless other fashion magazines.

"We are confident the courts will see it the same way."

The victim was not identified. Charges were pending, a police spokeswoman said, according to Reuters.

Campbell was being fingerprinted and photographed at a police station and later would be taken to court for arraignment, the spokeswoman added.

This isn't Campbell's first brush with the law. In 2003, the London-born model was sued by a former administrative assistant who alleged that Campbell had thrown a phone at her during a tantrum two years earlier in a Beverly Hills, California, hotel, according to The Associated Press.

In February 2000, Campbell pleaded guilty in Toronto to an assault charge for beating another assistant while making a film in Canada in 1998.