Photo by Michael Loccisane via Getty Images
Fate damned celebrities in the mid-aughts, and ten years ago this week, news broke about a new struggle for the rich and famous: starlet-targeting robbers. The Bling Ring did not launch their burglary enterprise till 2008, when the group of teenagers targeted Paris Hilton and her ilk, but on August 9, 2007, two men allegedly pillaged Kirsten Dunst's Soho Grand Hotel penthouse, fleeing with her iPod, $13,000 purse, and other prized items according to a Page Six story.The newspaper claimed that the accused men broke into Dunst's room shortly after she departed with British actor Simon Pegg (of Shaun of the Dead fame) and assistant Liat Baruch for the shoot of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. According to a 2007 CBS News article, security cameras captured the men leaving the vicinity.Ten years ago this week, cops arrested a suspect, Jarrod Beinerman. His attorney, James Kirschner, argued in court that the security footage proved Beinerman and his associate left Dunst's room empty-handed. "[He] went there to check out what was going on," Kirschner said according to the CBS News report. The same week, Page Six reported that Beinerman had updated his mood on MySpace to "worried."Cops later identified his robbery colleague as James Jimenez. Both men denied all accusations.Their 2010 trial offered many bizarre moments. Page Six attended the event, and came back with news that Jimenez's Defense attorney Robert Parker had proposed a theory that Jimenez and Beinerman were at Dunst's hotel delivering Dunst marijuana. When Parker pushed in court if they had smoked weed, Dunst shrieked, "No!" and Pegg yelped, "Absolutely not!" Parker didn't buy it. "I don't think there's a person on this planet who would believe… she doesn't smoke marijuana," he told New York Daily News.
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Jimenez's defense, the tabloid claimed, furthered a theory that he was too dumb to successfully steal from a celebrity, with his lawyer going so far as to call him a "Mongoloid.""I really don't understand the charges," Jimenez pleaded to Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Jill Konviser. "I don't understand why I'm being charged." Konviser shot back, "I understand because I presided over this trial and I'm familiar with all the evidence." She sentenced Jimenez to four years in prison. Beinerman received a four and a half year sentence. Both men maintained their innocence.By then, it was too late for other celebrities to learn from Dunst's experience: The Bling Ring had already despoiled the Los Angeles homes of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Rachel Bilson, Megan Fox, Audrina Patridge, Orlando Bloom, Miranda Kerr, and more.Read more: When 'High School Musical 2' Made Theatre Kids Cool