A photographer was sentenced today to prison for trying to extort $3 million by selling nude pictures of superstar
Cameron Diaz taken early in her career.
John Rutter was given 3 years and 8 months in prison for perjury and attempted grand theft under a sentence imposed by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael E. Pastor.
The charges against Rutter, 42, stemmed from a daylong photo shoot in 1992 in an abandoned L.A.-area warehouse. Diaz, then a 19-year-old unknown, posed wearing fishnet stockings and leather, and topless.
In the years after the shoot, her career took off. Such films as "The Mask" and "There's Something About Mary" earned her a place on Hollywood's A-list and up to $20 million a film. Rutter approached Diaz with the racy photos in 2003, a week before the premiere of her movie "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle," saying he had interested buyers.
Rutter's attorney, Mark Werksman, called the July trial a battle between a "rich and famous celebrity" and a "hardworking photographer."
Deputy Dist. Atty. David Walgren downplayed the celebrity aspect of the case in statements to reporters, saying that had the victim been someone other than Diaz, the case still would have been prosecuted "in the same courts" and "in the same manner."
Walgren had asked for the sentence the judge imposed.
Diaz testified that she felt no shame or embarrassment over the photo session.
"I kind of bought into thinking I would like to do images that are great images — rather than just a model who sells clothes," Diaz testified in July. "I didn't think of them as pornographic. I didn't think of them as perverted."