PHOTOS FINISHED? BILL WOULD TARGET PAPARAZZI.

Byline: Harrison Sheppard Sacramento Bureau

SACRAMENTO - Lindsay Lohan gets chased by paparazzi who box in her Mercedes and ram into her car as she tries to flee.

Reese Witherspoon can't get into her own home because photographers are blocking her car.

Jennifer Lopez narrowly avoids an accident when a photographer following her screeches through a red light and cuts off her car.

While a certain amount of attention can be expected to come with Hollywood stardom, incidents such as these are prompting a growing number of efforts to rein in aggressive paparazzi - including a measure by a San Fernando Valley lawmaker.

Assemblywoman Cindy Montanez, D-San Fernando, who was working on AB 381 even before the Lohan incident, would hit paparazzi in the pocketbooks - allowing celebrities who are assaulted or intimidated by paparazzi to sue for the amount the photographer is paid for the photo, plus damages.

``We're seeing that more paparazzi are out there and committing assault or attempting to commit assault in their effort to take a picture of a celebrity,'' said Montanez.

``What we're saying is you cannot make any profit off a picture that was taken while that paparazzi committed or attempted to commit an assault on a person.''

The bill is a follow-up to a state law passed in 1998 - the year after Princess Diana was killed in a car crash following a chase by paparazzi - that targeted and spelled out similar penalties for photographers who trespass in pursuit of a photo.

And it is one of several efforts to crack down on the increasingly aggressive tactics used by celebrity photographers. The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office has launched a broader investigation into the photographers and their tactics, which some in the entertainment industry say are far worse in Los Angeles than in New York.

D.A. spokeswoman Jane Robison said the concern is for public-safety hazards created by photographers' tactics. ``If any of this has crossed over a line that jeopardized regular people driving or walking on the street or celebrities and family members or whoever - that's the No. 1 concern.''

But Frank Griffin, a longtime celebrity photographer with Los Angeles- based Bauer-Griffin, said the ``bill doesn't make any sense whatsoever.''

Photographers who crash into a celebrity or otherwise assault them often have difficulty selling that picture to major magazines, he said, so they have little financial incentive to engage in such behavior. The incidents are also relatively rare, he said.

``You've got this image of photographers driving around like Mad Max with big battering rams on their cars smashing into celebrities to take pictures of them,'' Griffin said. ``It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't happen in the real world. It may happen in her (Montanez's) imagination.

``Who is going to buy the pictures of a celebrity having been crashed into by rampant photographers?''

Press-freedom advocates also object to the bill.

Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition, said he worries it could be easily misused to create financial incentives for people to target legitimate news photographers.

He also believes laws under which someone can be prosecuted and sued for any type of assault are adequate to cover paparazzi who break the law in pursuit of a photo.

``We're completely sympathetic to the desire to curb or prohibit the assaultive behavior that is at the core of this legislative change,'' Scheer said. ``But we don't think that any laws are needed to accomplish that.

``The behavior that's described is an assault. And you can sue somebody right now for an assault, and somebody who assaults you can also be prosecuted.''

Leslie Sloane Zelnik, an entertainment publicist who represents Lohan and Witherspoon as well as other clients who have faced intense paparazzi attention, including Katie Holmes and Britney Spears, said she was glad to see the effort.

But she said she doubts it will have much effect because of the amount of money involved: Some photographers make six-figure incomes.

The paparazzi problem also is more hazardous in Los Angeles than in New York, she said, because of the region's car culture. And there simply seem to be more paparazzi - and they're more aggressive - than in recent years.

``(In New York), they're usually outside a hotel or the talk shows, but they're not there to the extent of L.A.,'' said Zelnik, who is based in New York. ``L.A. is horrible.''

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has not taken a position on the bill, but Montanez hopes the governor's personal experiences during his movie-star days will make him receptive.

In May 1997, Schwarzenegger and wife Maria Shriver were pursued and briefly trapped in their car by two photographers as they were taking their children to school in Santa Monica.

One photographer, who was trying to get the first pictures of Schwarzenegger after his then-recent heart surgery, rammed the couple's Mercedes. The two British tabloid photographers were later sentenced to brief jail terms for false imprisonment.

Now, of course, Schwarzenegger is generally protected by armed California Highway Patrol officers who work with the governor's press office to keep photographers at bay during government as well as family functions.

Montanez's bill passed the Senate Judiciary Committee prior to the Legislature going on recess earlier this month and is expected to be taken up on the full Senate floor shortly after it returns Aug. 15. The bill will then have to return to the Assembly.

Harrison Sheppard, [phone]

harrison.sheppard(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

Lindsay Lohan arrives at the premiere of ``Herbie: Fully Loaded'' at the El Capitan Theater in Hollywood in June.

Kevin Winter/Getty Images