Campbell begins community service in NYC

[AFP photo]

Naomi Campbell, center, enters a Department of Sanitation facility, Monday, March 19, 2007, in New York, to begin community service as punishment for having hit one of her employees with a telephone. The 36-year-old supermodel was expected to push a broom or mop at the Manhattan garage to fulfill her sentence for community service for throwing a cell phone at her maid over a pair of missing jeans.[AP photo]

NEW YORK - Naomi Campbell, wearing black stilettos and slinging dark work boots over her shoulder, traded the catwalk for community service Monday at a sanitation garage to start a five-day sentence for assaulting her maid.

The 36-year-old supermodel arrived at the Manhattan District 3 Garage at Pier 36 on the Hudson in a black sport utility vehicle. She'll be pushing a broom or mop at the garage for her guilty plea to misdemeanor assault for throwing a cell phone at her maid over a pair of missing jeans.

Campbell was met by a garage official who escorted her through the building's dirty, steel double doors. She also wore chocolate brown pants, a short fitted coat with a flared bottom, dark sunglasses and a newsboy-type cap over a short hairdo.

She didn't acknowledge the horde of assembled media.

"Miss Campbell arrived on time to work. She came ready to work," Albert Durrell, deputy chief of the Department of Sanitation, told reporters at a briefing outside the facility.

It's the same sanitation depot where former Culture Club frontman Boy George performed his five-day community service stint in August. He pleaded guilty for falsely reporting a burglary at his lower Manhattan apartment. The responding officers found cocaine instead.

Unlike George, who performed his duties outdoors in full view of TV cameras, Campbell will work inside the garage. She was issued protective gloves, dust mask and reflective orange vest.

"We have plenty of work for her to do over the next five days," Durrell said.

Because of her celebrity status, sanitation police officers will be stationed at each entrance of the facility, Durrell said.

Campbell, who has a reputation for angry outbursts, pleaded guilty in January for hitting Ana Scolavino in the back of the head with the phone last March. Scolavino was treated for a head injury.

In exchange for her guilty plea, Campbell was ordered to pay Scolavino's medical expenses of $363, do five days of community service and attend a two-day anger-management program.