Amanda Bynes in court with her lawyer today. (Steven Hirsch)
Another look at Amanda Bynes arriving at court in New York (Lenny Abbot, PacificCoastNews.com)
Amanda Bynes’ mugshot (Steven Hirsch)
Television star Amanda Bynes was hauled be-wigged and bewildered into a Manhattan courtroom this morning on bizarre bong-tossing charges after cops responded to reports of her smoking a joint in her lobby, and then caught her allegedly flinging the device out of her Times Square apartment’s 36th floor window.
A wild-eyed Bynes, 27, was still blowing smoke — figuratively — as she and her tangled peroxide-blonde wig were escorted into Manhattan Criminal Court at 10:30 a.m. No sooner had she entered the courthouse than she began demanding that photographers not take her picture and insisting that cops had somehow “improperly” arrested her.
“Sir! Sir!” she told a Post photographer, peering at him through a curtain of frizzy fake hair. “I’m asking you — I don’t want any pictures, sir.”
Then she turned and faced an audience full of reporters, telling them, “I don’t want any photos. No press are allowed in here.”
“Yes sir,” she kept telling the judge as he instructed her on her next court date. Almost all of her fingernails were broken — with just one long pink nail among them.
Byrnes was released on her own recognizance with a strong warning from Manhattan Criminal Court judge that her bail will be sky high if she is rearrested. She had to ask her lawyer to spot her a $20 bill so she could catch a cab away from the courthouse media circus and over to the circus outside her apartment at West 47th and Eighth Avenue.
“She said, ‘You go quick. Lock the door and go quick,” said her driver, Mir A. Hossain of Jamaica, Queens.
“I asked her, ‘Why are all the people chasing us?’ and she didn’t say anything.”
As the cab arrived at her building, a throng of some 30 reporters and paparazzi followed as it made its way slowly down into the garage. The cab was surrounded, and then Bynes was herself mobbed as she got out.
The fare was $27.
“I’m not upset about the seven dollar,” the cabby told reporters. “I’m happy, because she’s a famous lady.”
Bynes rose to fame as a child star in Nickelodeon’s “All That” show and “The Amanda Show,” which she hosted. The formerly fresh-faced actress has starred in a handful of TV movies and films, including “Easy A” — her most recent, from 2010.
Her troubles began last night at around 7:30 p.m., when building staff called the cops on her for allegedly rolling and lighting a joint in the lobby.
Responding uniformed cops could smell the pot “emanating” from though her door, according to the criminal complaint against her.
“Thereafter, I observed defendant open the door,” one cop told prosecutors, the complaint said. “And saw a bong on the kitchen counter. When I asked defendant about said bong, and while wearing full police uniform, I observed defendant grab said bong, run to the westbound-facing window, and throw it out the window where numerous pedestrians were walking on the Eighth Avenue and West 47th Street sidewalks below.”
“It was just a vase,” Bynes had told cops of the allegedly flung bong, prosecutors said as she was arraigned on reckless endangerment, attempted tampering with physical evidence, and unlawful possession of marijuana, all misdemeanors carrying a maximum of one year jail.
As of this afternoon, cops still hadn’t found the alleged bong.
Neighbors today said they smelled marijuana in an elevator and spotted cops in the building last night.
“The officer was looking around with a flashlight, looking behind plant pots,” one neighbor, who asked to be described as Steven, told The Post.
“No one knows where that bong went. There is a fifth floor terrace. A cop with a flashlight and a maintenance guy were on the fifth floor terrace were out there last night,” he said. “They were looking for something, but I didn’t see them find anything.
“My question is where is [the bong]?” he said.
Bynes was well known in the building for wandering in her crazy wig and old-school Nikes — and for the smell of marijuana they way often wafted from her door.
“She looked like she was headed to a rock concert or a Halloween party,” said one neighbor. “I didn’t know if she was someone from the streets or what.”
Additional reporting by Laura Italiano and Natalie O’Neill