Naomi Campbell to scrub New York floors over phone rage incident

NEW YORK: British supermodel Naomi Campbell is to spend a week mopping floors at a New York City warehouse for hitting her maid with a mobile phone, prosecutors said on Wednesday.   

Campbell, who was sentenced in January after pleading guilty to reckless assault, was to start scrubbing the Lower East Side Sanitation Department warehouse on March 19, a prosecution source said, asking not to be named.   

Campbell, 36, was also ordered to attend a two-day anger management course and pay more than 350 dollars to cover housekeeper Ana Scolavino's medical expenses over the March 2006 incident.   

The supermodel's lawyer, David Breitbart, asked officials last month to ensure Campbell served her sentence indoors and preferably on a project that reflected her interests in AIDS charities and children's organizations.   

Breitbart said he was especially keen to avoid a repeat of the situation British musician and DJ Boy George found himself in last August when serving a community service order in New York for filing a false police report.   

The singer was followed by hordes of journalists as he swept the streets in Manhattan, forcing justice officials to put him on a less conspicuous detail.   

"She has a history of people stalking her. She has a history of people threatening her," Breitbart said last month, appealing for her sentence to be served in a more private location. "We're very concerned about her security."   

He suggested that the type of work she could do might include working in a school or hospital.   

He was reluctant to talk about the community service order Wednesday, saying the details of the sentence were "not for public disclosure."   

Campbell was arrested by New York police in March last year after Scolavino alleged the supermodel had thrown the cell phone at her head and accused her of stealing a pair of jeans. Police said the wound required several stitches.   

In 2000, Campbell pleaded guilty in a Canadian court to assaulting another assistant by grabbing her by the throat and hitting her on the head, again with a telephone.   

She was given an absolute discharge following a deal struck between her lawyers and Canadian prosecutors.   

In an effort to control her temper, Campbell, who shot to fame after being scouted by the Elite modeling agency in London when she was just 15, at one point booked herself into an anger-management clinic in Arizona.   

"Anger is a manifestation of a deeper issue... and that, for me, is based on insecurity, self-esteem and loneliness," Campbell said at the time.