Rutter

A jury convicted John Rutter of attempted grand theft, forgery and perjury. Rutter contends his forgery conviction should be reversed because the prosecution failed to disclose a piece of its evidence in a timely manner. He contends his perjury conviction should be reversed because the trial court erred in instructing the jury on the elements of the crime. We find no merit in these contentions and affirm the judgment.

FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS BELOW

Before she was Princess Fiona, Mary Jensen or Charlie’s Angel Natalie, Cameron Diaz was a 19-year-old model who on one occasion posed for Rutter, a well-known photographer. Rutter did not pay Diaz for her modeling but she received copies of the photographs to use in her portfolio. In some of the photographs Diaz appeared topless. Diaz never signed a release allowing Rutter to sell the photographs.

Eleven years later, just prior to the release of Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle (Columbia Pictures 2003), Rutter contacted Diaz and her representatives and offered to sell Diaz the pictures from her photo shoot for $3.5 million. Rutter claimed he had buyers willing to pay $5 million for the pictures. The buyers, he said, intended to…