SWEDISH TV STAR SWIPED SUNGLASSES, POLICE SAY
Gunilla Persson is in reality show ‘Swedish Hollywood Wives.’
PALM BEACH — A top European reality television star was arrested overnight by Palm Beach police after she allegedly stole a $545 pair of designer glasses from a Worth Avenue shop, according to a report.
Gunilla Persson, star for the past eight years of the Scandinavian reality TV show “Swedish Hollywood Wives,” (“Svenska Hollywoodfruar”) was booked into the Palm Beach County Jail at about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Persson, 59, whose full name was listed as Sonja Gunilla Persson Linville and whose address was listed in the wealthy Los Angeles neighborhood of Pacific Palisades, left jail at about 2:30 a.m. Wednesday after posting $5,000 bond, jail records show.
According to the Palm Beach police report, at 7 p.m. Tuesday, police were called to the Chanel Palm Beach store at Worth and Hibiscus avenues.
An officer watched security-camera video that showed a woman, later identified as Persson, enter the store at about 4:30 p.m., then go to the counter, where she inspected a handbag and chatted with a cashier.
The footage then showed the woman pick up the glasses from the counter, don them, walk to a corner of the shop and slide them to the top of her head. She then bought the handbag and left.
The officer, provided a description from the manager as well as the video, later spotted Persson near the store and stopped her.
As the two talked, Persson took the sunglasses from her purse and placed them on her head as if they belonged to her, the officer wrote. He said the tags had been removed.
The officer said Persson then said she was going to return the sunglasses later.
On Wednesday, a manager at the store declined to comment.
The charge, grand theft of between $300 and $5,000, is a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison.
“She’s doing fine. This is a misunderstanding that we’re confident can be cleared up,” attorney Michael D. Murphy said from Los Angeles. Murphy did not say why Persson was in Florida or whether she has returned to California.
A call made Wednesday to a phone number associated with Persson was answered by a woman who disconnected.
In Stockholm, Susanne Nylen, a spokeswoman for MTG Sweden, which produces the show, said she had not heard of the arrest.
According to Persson’s web page, she starred first in “Swedish New York Wives,” then switched to the Hollywood version, “one of the most-viewed shows of all times at TV3, MTG.”
The web page said she received college degrees in language in journalism in Sweden and worked in radio and in documentaries and feature films.
In April 2017, according to news reports, fire struck Persson’s Southern California home; she escaped with her elderly mother and teen daughter, but one of her cats died.
Persson does not show up in Palm Beach County court or jail records. Court records in Texas show that in 1986, Persson was arrested on a theft charge in the Dallas area and that she pleaded guilty and adjudication was withheld.
Persson’s ex-husband, Stephen Linville, said Wednesday from Dallas that the two divorced decades ago and he has not stayed in touch with her.
She is not the first reality TV star to be arrested in Palm Beach in recent months. Luann de Lesseps, part of the cast of the “Real Housewives of New York,” was arrested after an altercation with town police officers in December at The Colony Hotel. A hearing in her case is scheduled for Friday, Palm Beach County court records show.