Ohio Police Chief Learns the Cost of Celebrity

2 years ago

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This is what the paparazzi have wrought: Barry P. Carpenter, a police chief in Ohio , was convicted this week of "theft in office" and other charges in connection with a break-in at the home of the surrogate mother carrying twins for actors Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick.

The motivation? He was trying to steal ultrasound pictures of the twins, pictures of the mother and legal documents to sell to the photographers, who testified against the chief during the trial.

The bright spot in this immensely bizarre episode is that the price of paparazzi pictures is down, just like everything else in this economy, so the economic incentive to break the law for a celebrity photo has lessened. The Daily Beast recently estimated that a celebrity shot sells for 31 percent less these days than two years ago. At the high-end of the market (Brangelina and company,) pictures fetch 50 percent less than they used to.

In my years reporting on Hollywood and its lifestyle, I always found paparazzi to be completely unapologetic for their business. They said the public is eager to see the photographs and the celebrities are eager for the publicity, so why should the photographers be blamed? They've got a point, which is why they've thrived despite all the criticism hurled their way.

The paparazzi's negative image dates back at least to Jackie O's public feud with Ron Galella, and was heightened by the accident that killed Princess Diana during a 1997 paparazzi car chase in Paris. These days, the paparazzi's ranks include many amateurs who have found hanging out at Los Angeles celebrity hangouts, or trolling the beaches of Malibu, where movie stars like Pierce Brosnan own homes, highly lucrative.

I once ran into a college student who had turned occasional paparazzo after a chance encounter with Dustin Hoffman. She snapped a few pictures of the actor and sent them to two photo agencies on a lark. She made $780 for 13 pictures -- "in not even 10 minutes of work," she noted. Since then she had devoted her weekends and free afternoons to staking out celebrity hot spots with an old-fashioned 35-mm film camera.

The corps of opportunistic paparazzi I ran into also included a moonlighting Spanish-speaking cook and a couple of teenage boys.

But now business is down, which may be bad news for the paps but good news for the vulnerable, including easy-to-corrupt police chiefs.

Filed Under: Woman Up

Tagged: barry p. carpenter, BarryP.Carpenter, matthew broderick, MatthewBroderick, sarah jessica parker, SarahJessicaParker

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