DOCUMENT: Celebrity, Crime

TV Starlets Behind Bars

"Vampire Diaries" actresses busted during photo shoot

Vampire Diaries

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TV Starlets Behind Bars

SEPTEMBER 10--A quintet of young TV actresses was arrested last month on disorderly conduct charges after they allegedly participated in a photo shoot while hanging over a bridge above a Georgia interstate.

The women, four of whom star in "The Vampire Diaries," a show debuting tonight on the CW network, were nabbed on August 22 after cops received numerous 911 calls about "females hanging from" the Rumble Road Bridge in Smarr, a town about 65 miles south of Atlanta (where the drama is filmed). The women were also reportedly "flashing motorists" driving northbound on Interstate 75.

According to a Monroe County Sheriff's Office report, the actresses were being shot by photographer Tyler Shields, whose digital cameras were inspected by a cop who discovered numerous images showing "the females hanging, sitting and straddling the bridge." One photo, a deputy noted, "even showed one female being held by her legs by the other females, as if they were trying to throw her over."

As seen in the mug shots at left, the arrestees included Nina Dobreva, 20, the lead actress in "The Vampire Diaries." Dobreva's co-stars, Candice Accola, 22, and Kayla Ewell, 24, were also popped (Dobreva, Accola, and Ewell are featured prominently on the CW web site and in ads and commercials promoting the show). Actresses Krystal Vayda (who is not in the cast) and Sara Canning, 22, and photographer Tyler Shields, 27, were also collared.

The six arrestees were booked at the Monroe County lockup, where each posed for a mug shot. Shields laughed when TSG told him how cops claimed that one actress was dangled from the bridge. "They have a flair for the drama," he said. "I didn't Suge Knight the cast of 'The Vampire Diaries.'" The photographer, who said the group "never did anything remotely bad" during the shoot, told TSG that he paid $4000 in fines to settle the charges against the group. (8 pages)