When she was 17, Stefanie Woods became one of America's most talked-about criminals by stealing money from a 9-year-old selling Girl Scout cookies in Boynton Beach and bragging about it on TV.
Then the striking blond "Cookie Monster" was released early from a high-security juvenile treatment center to rack up more serious charges luring a man into a car where he was stripped of his pants and robbed of 240 methadone pills at gunpoint.
Now 20, Woods is still being talked about, but this time she's not alone in the doghouse -- the prosecutor in her case is already off the job for appearing to conspire with a judge for special treatment.
Cyrus Toufanian and Circuit Judge Amy Smith are heard in recorded sidebar talks discussing how to keep possibly reduced charges and an accompanying plea out of the public eye -- a luxury certainly not afforded most defendants.
Toufanian's plan to reduce conspiracy, false imprisonment, and kidnapping charges to robbery and the pair's desire to keep hearings off the books is "inappropriate and unexcusable," State Attorney Michael McAuliffe told the Sun-Sentinel.
"There is no justification for this attempt to avoid public knowledge and scrutiny of a specific case," McAuliffe said.
Toufanian was suspended without pay during a review of the tapes, and resigned last week.
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Smith has defended her actions, saying she was trying to ensure Woods wouldn't be treated more harshly because of her notoriety.
But the part-time model and one-time high school student was already on probation for burglary, mischief, and stabbing a boyfriend with a pocket knife (hopefully not in the Tagalongs!) when she became a national sensation returning to the cookie stand where she stole $168 to tell media how easy it was -- and that she was "not sorry."
"We went through all that effort to get [the money], we got all these charges, and we had to give the money back," Woods whined. "I'm kind of pissed...I was gonna buy a new cell phone."
