Ryder shoplifting charge reduced

Ryder's probation involves carrying out volunteer work

Hollywood actress Winona Ryder has had her shoplifting conviction of 2002 reduced from a felony to a misdemeanour offence by a Superior Court judge.

Ryder was convicted of theft and vandalism after she stole thousands of dollars of goods from a department store in Los Angeles.

Ryder was sentenced to three years' probation, 480 hours of community service and fined $10,000.

She has now been put on unsupervised probation until December 2005.

"The judge doesn't want to do anything to damage her career," Ryder's solicitor Shepard Kopp said outside court.

'Bigger fish'

"Everyone realizes there are bigger (criminal) fish to fry," he said.

"I mean, everybody would rather be convicted only of a misdemeanour than a felony and eventually this case is going to be expunged, and there's going to be nothing on her record."

The judge also ordered that the stolen merchandise be destroyed and surveillance videotapes from the store be returned to Saks Fifth Avenue department store.

Rundle said that Saks did not want the goods back, however.

Ryder has made more than 30 movies, including Reality Bites, Beetlejuice, Girl, Interrupted and Edward Scissorhands, and has twice been nominated for Oscars - for best actress in 1995's Little Women and in 1993 for her supporting role in The Age of Innocence.

Ryder's next movie, scheduled for release in 2005, is a futuristic action film called A Scanner Darkly, directed by Richard Linklater.