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by Andy Scott
They say that you're innocent until proven guilty. Try
telling that to the following stars, who've gone to great lengths to
maintain their innocence long after being convicted of crimes. These
celebrities have refused to admit they're guilty, despite a court of law
telling them otherwise.
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Mike Tyson
In February 1992, boxer Mike Tyson was convicted in the
alleged rape of Desiree Washington, an 18-year-old who had recently been
crowned Miss Black Rhode Island. He was subsequently sentenced to six
years in prison, three of which he actually served. Over 20 years after
his sentencing, Tyson maintained he was innocent in a wide-ranging 2013
interview with The Daily Beast. "I didn't rape her," he said,
adamantly. "They wanted to convict me more than anything in the world.
There's not a person in the history of [Indiana] that got convicted for
rape that did less time than I did." He continued: "They wanted to be
known for the state that convicted me. If the hanging judge really
believed I did that, they would have given me 60 years. But they gave me
six, which got cut down to three." In the years since his release,
Tyson has had numerous run-ins with the law, including arrests on
suspicions of DUI and felony drug possession in 2006. He was arrested
again in 2009 after getting into an altercation with a photographer at
Los Angeles International Airport.
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Mel Gibson
In March 2011, Mel Gibson agreed to a plea deal in a
domestic violence case brought forth by his ex-girlfriend, Oksana
Grigorieva—better known as the woman who was on the other end of
Gibson's profanity-laden phone conversations leaked to RadarOnline in 2010. As part of the deal, the Los Angeles Times
reported at the time that Gibson was sentenced to "36 months' probation
and to complete a 52-week domestic violence counseling program and 16
hours of community service." By accepting a plea deal, one would assume
that Gibson was admitting he was guilty, right? Well, not exactly. After
the case was settled, Gibson's attorney, Blair Berk, asserted to the Times that
Gibson "maintains his innocence." "He feels a plea is in the best
interest of his children," Berk said. Gibson—who was reported to have
rolled his eyes during sentencing—later confirmed this in an interview
with Deadline. "I could have continued to fight this for years
and it probably would have come out fine," he said in 2011. "But I ended
it for my children and my family. This was going to be such a circus.
You don't drag other people in your life through this sewer needlessly,
so I'll take the hit and move on."
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Martha Stewart
Throughout her now-infamous insider trading scandal, in
which she was accused of selling stock at the last minute to avoid a
hefty loss, media mogul Martha Stewart has stood by her claim that she
was innocent all along. At one point, as the scandal began to make its
way to the courthouse, Stewart even launched her own website,
MarthaTalks.com, to proclaim her innocence. "After more than a year, the
government has decided to bring charges against me for matters that are
personal and entirely unrelated to the business of Martha Stewart
Living Omnimedia," Stewart wrote. "I want you to know that I am
innocent—and that I will fight to clear my name." Stewart was eventually
convicted on four charges of obstructing justice and lying to
prosecutors and sentenced to five months in prison, five months of home
arrest and two years' probation. Speaking to Vanity Fair while
under house arrest in 2005, Stewart—who tried to appeal the verdict
multiple times—challenged the verdict, arguing that she was simply being
made an example of by the courts. "Of course that is what it is all
about," she said, supporting an argument that had become popular at the
time. "Bring 'em down a notch, to scare other people. If Martha can be
sent to jail, think hard before you sell that stock." She kept quiet on
her prison days in the years that followed. However, in 2013, she told The Today Show's Matt Lauer that her time in prison was "horrible" and that she was finally ready to write about it in her autobiography.
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Lindsay Lohan
Over the years, troubled actress Lindsay Lohan has been
accused and ultimately convicted of a number of crimes, ranging from
DUIs to reckless driving. Many of those crimes she's since apologized
for. However, there's one particular case on which she's never budged:
the one in which she was accused of stealing a $2,500 necklace from a
Venice, California store in 2011. Throughout the trial, Lohan maintained
her innocence, going so far as to reject a plea deal to prove her
point. "Though many advised her to follow the safe route by taking 'the
deal', the truth is, Ms. Lohan is innocent," Lohan's lawyer said at the
time. Facing four months in jail, Lohan eventually caved and pleaded no
contest to the charge; in the end, she only wound up serving 35 days
under house arrest. Although her legal strategy changed, Lohan has never
wavered on her claims of innocence in the years since her sentencing.
"I was accused of everything, even stealing a necklace," she told Piers
Morgan a few years later in an interview with The Daily Mail.
"I'd never steal a necklace. They didn't show the real in-store video
tape to anyone, because that shows the store attendant putting it on me
and me taking out cash to pay for it, and she's saying, 'No, you can
just bring it back tomorrow.' So, there's like a slew of things that
have gone on like that which have been such a strain."
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Robert Blake
In November 2005, actor Robert Blake was ordered to pay $30
million to the family of his late wife, Ronnie Lee Bakely, after being
found responsible for her death by a civil jury in Bakely's wrongful
death suit. The verdict came about eight months after Blake was
acquitted of criminal charges of Bakely's 2001 murder. Still, Blake says
he's convinced that someone else was ultimately responsible for his
wife's tragic murder. "She had 15 ID cards. She had 15 credit cards,"
Blake said during a bizarro interview with Piers Morgan in 2012. "She
had different places where she lived and nobody could ever find her if
they were looking for her." Blake went on to say that Bakely "had people
that she burned," whom Blake says actually killed her, according to CNN.
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