BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Movie buffs and fashionistas won't be the only ones with their eyes on Winona Ryder for the next three years, after a judge slapped the actress with a strict probation sentence Friday for her shoplifting spree last December.

Under the terms of her three-year probation, Ryder, 31, will serve 480 hours of community service and will undergo both drug and personal counseling. She will also have to pay $6,555.40 in restitution to the Beverly Hills Saks Fifth Avenue where she was caught shoplifting, plus $2,700 in fines.

"The sentence fashioned today will ensure that if you steal again you will go to jail. Do you understand?" asked Superior Court Judge Elden Fox.

"Yes, I do," replied Ryder timidly.

Fox could have sentenced Ryder to a maximum of three years in jail.  But Assistant District Attorney Ann Rundle stopped short of requesting jail time for the actress, asking instead that Ryder receive probation and counseling.

To fulfill her community service requirement, Ryder will work 240 hours at City of Hope, a cancer treatment center outside of Los Angeles, 120 hours at the Foundation for the Junior Blind, and 120 hours at Caring for Babies with AIDS.

In his appeal to the judge for leniency, Ryder's attorney, Mark Geragos, said, "One day of bad should not trump what I believe to be a decade of exemplary work." He cited Ryder's charitable contributions, including her work with the Klaas Foundation, founded by the parents of 12-year-old Polly Klaas, who was abducted from her home in northern California and murdered.

A combative exchange between the lawyers ensued when the prosecutor accused Geragos of "trotting out the body of a dead child" to help his client.

Winona Ryder and her lawyer, Mark Geragos, reacted with outrage to the prosecutor's accusations that Geragos had used a "dead child" to help his client.

Mark Klaas, speaking to reporters outside the courthouse Friday, said, "Winona Ryder may be a double felon, but she is a double felon with a very big heart and a very generous spirit."

Known for her roles in such films as "Bram Stoker's Dracula," "Little Women" and "Age of Innocence," the A-list actress was apprehended outside of the upscale department store on Dec. 12, 2001, bearing $5.560.40 worth of stolen goods.

Ryder's two-week trial featured a starring role for the actress on the small screen, this time in two closed-circuit videotapes shot by security guards from a basement control room.  The tapes show Ryder collecting merchandise — from a $1,500 Gucci dress to an $80 pair of socks — and disappearing into dressing rooms on the second and third floors of the department store.  When she emerges, many of the items are gone.

Store security guards picked up where the tapes left off, with one testifying that she peered through the slats of one dressing room to see Ryder cutting off store security tags with an orange-handled pair of scissors.

It took a jury of 12, which included former Sony Entertainment chief Peter Gruber (who oversaw movies with Ryder but denied ever meeting the actress) and two others in the entertainment industry, about five hours over two days to find Ryder guilty of felony grand theft and felony vandalism.

The actress was acquitted of burglary, a charge which would have required proof that Ryder came to the store that day intending to steal.

What the jury did not hear, however, was that fleecing Saks last December wasn't the first time Ryder had dabbled in shoplifting, according to transcripts of one private discussion between the attorneys and Judge Fox.  During that discussion, Rundle said she had videotape of Ryder stealing from Barneys of New York on May 14, 2000, and on Oct. 10, 2001, and from the Beverly Hills Neiman Marcus on Nov. 29, 2001.  Citing their prejudicial nature, Fox ruled the prior acts inadmissable.

Rundle also disclosed, in a Dec. 2 sentencing memo, that Ryder used an alias, Emily Thompson, to obtain prescriptions for some of the eight forms of painkiller she was found with when arrested, ranging from Valium to Vicodin to a generic form of Oxycodone, otherwise known as "Hillybilly Heroin." Ryder was originally charged with illegally possessing painkillers, but the drug charge was dropped before her trial.

And according to a probation report released Friday, Ryder was "shopping doctors"  to get multiple prescriptions under six different names.

Ryder's attorney argued from day one that his client was the victim of an overzealous team of security guards and that Ryder meant for a credit card she used to purchase other items at the store be "left open" and charged for the remaining merchandise. 

Ryder, who weathered the media blitz surrounding the trial with poise and an array of designer outfits, never took the stand to defend herself.  But the actress made clear through frowns and furrowed brows what she thought of each turn in the prosecution's case. 

In the end, the jury followed the lead of prosecutor Rundle, who pared down Ryder's case in her closing argument to a marquee-ready slogan: "She came, she stole, she left.  End of story."

While Ryder's next role remains uncertain, her attorney will turn to more serious matters for his next case.  On Dec. 9, Geragos will represent a woman charged with murdering a 17-year-old boy outside a Glendale, Calif., high school.