Wednesday, 17 Sep, 2008 Offbeat

A woman from Long Island was pleaded guilty and sentenced to 3 years' probation for trying to poison a housemate by putting Visine eye drops in the man's iced tea - a gag used in the popular Hollywood movie "Wedding Crashers".

The woman, known as Kristine Anzalone, 25, was ordered to pay the $10,205 medical bill of the victim due to the fact that he doesn't have health insurance. However, Joseph Gentissi Jr., 32, the woman's victim, considered the court's decision unfair.

"It's not fair. This is a woman who tried to poison me. She should have been charged with attempted murder. We were hoping she was going to get a strong sentence," said Gentissi. The man also blamed Anzalone of killing his dog, Gucci.

According to the Anzalone's lawyer, the woman was only defending her unborn child, because the man, who had lived with Anzalone and Christopher, her then-husband, didn't stop smoking around the house while she was pregnant. But Gentissi denied smoking around a pregnant woman.

It is worth mentioning that the eye drops led to vomiting and bleeding rectally. The judge ordered Anzalone to stay away from the victim.

"She's sorry, she's remorseful for her actions. While she was pregnant, the victim was doing things that were not good for her baby," said her lawyer, Nancy Bartling.

"She lost control. She was jealous. She took it as a big joke. She set out to hurt me and she sure did," said Gentissi, claiming that Anzalone was angry with the fact that he intended to go and have a couple of drinks with her husband and leave her at home alone.

Gentissi said that Anzalone provoked a pit bull to kill his Chihuahua. But Anzalone's lawyer said that the man's accusations are not true and Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice's office decided to drop them.

The Visine eye drops include a chemical called tetrahydrozoline, which contracts blood vessels. Thus, if ingested, it can cause vomiting and other sicknesses. In the hit movie, the character played by Owen Wilson puts Visine into the drink of a love rival and surely the outcome of the act was much more comic.

Source: New York Post