Speaking Up for Zsa Zsa : Woman Testifies She Thought Same Officer ‘Would Kill’ Her

The defense in the police officer-slapping trial of Zsa Zsa Gabor presented its star witness Thursday, a Virginia woman who tearfully testified that she was roughed up by the same Beverly Hills cop Gabor is accused of assaulting.

“I thought he would kill me,” Melanie Yonkers of Alexandria, Va., said, referring to her October, 1988, encounter with Officer Paul Kramer.

Yonkers said she was pulled over by the motorcycle officer after her 2 1/2-year-old daughter, Lacy, had “slithered” out of her car seat and was sticking her head out a back window.

‘Threw Me’

The witness said that, after she refused to sign a citation for failing to strap her daughter in the car seat, Kramer “grabbed my arms and threw me against the back of the car and handcuffed me.”

At that point, Yonkers said, her daughter became traumatized and began crying.

“Every time my daughter sees a police officer or hears a siren, she says, ‘Is that mean man going to take mommy away?’ ” said Yonkers, who flew to California at her own expense “to try to set the record straight about how abusive this man is.”

Yonkers, the sister-in-law of Hollywood executive Michael Medavoy of Orion Pictures, said she refused to sign the citation because she was in the process of moving to Virginia and Kramer told her she would be required to stay in California to appear in court.

Yonkers, sobbing throughout her testimony in Beverly Hills Municipal Court, described the 6-foot-4 Kramer as “very abrasive, arrogant and smug.”

Gabor’s lawyer, William Graysen, had been heralding Yonkers as his star witness, and her testimony was intended to support Gabor’s assertion that Kramer roughed her up after stopping her for a routine traffic violation June 14.

Earlier this week, a doctor testified that he was thrown to the ground by Kramer after he was pulled over for speeding in 1987.

Pattern Alleged

Graysen has said he would present testimony from several other people who have had run-ins with Kramer to illustrate a pattern of “abuse” by the veteran officer.

Gabor, who has admitted that she slapped Kramer but only in self-defense, completed her third day of testimony Thursday.

After advising Judge Charles Rubin that she had a “terrible headache,” the Hungarian-born glamour queen spent only a few minutes on the witness stand, sipping water and taking deep breaths throughout.

She again charged that Kramer called her an “(expletive) whore” during the altercation and acknowledged that she responded by using the same expletive, because “I learned it from your wonderful Police Department.”