Reality bites for Winona Ryder as she awaits verdict on showbiz shoplifting trial

The jury in Winona Ryder's shoplifting trial was preparing to consider its verdict yesterday after the defence rested its case without calling the 31-year-old actress to the witness stand.

After a week of testimony, most of it from security guards at the Saks Fifth Avenue store in Beverly Hills where Ms Ryder is accused of walking off with more than $5,000 (£3,200) in unpaid merchandise, the defence appeared satisfied to punch holes in the testimony of prosecution witnesses without providing much in the way of an alternative explanation.

The prosecution, meanwhile, presented a vigorous summing up in which it asserted the case against Ms Ryder was open and shut. "She came, she stole, she left. Period. End of story," deputy district attorney Ann Rundle told the jury.

Ms Rundle reeled off a sarcastic, hard-hitting list of 10 misconceptions about the law, all aimed at belittling and demolishing Ms Ryder's most obvious lines of defence. Among them: only poor people steal; if a store sells hairbows for $200 it deserves to be ripped off; and celebrities enjoy a higher burden of proof than ordinary people.

The strategy pursued by Ms Ryder's lawyer, Mark Geragos, appeared to be designed to create as much reasonable doubt in jurors' minds as possible about the prosecution case – all he is required to do since the burden of proof is on the prosecution.

Security guards at the store suggested in court that Ms Ryder had acted with impunity, deliberately cutting off sensor tags with a pair of scissors before leaving the premises, then tried to explain away her actions by saying she was preparing for film roles. Mr Geragos spent much of the past week casting doubt on their accounts, asking why they had not included key evidence in their incident reports and insinuating that they deliberately conspired to "nail" a celebrity.

The defence's star witness was a former Saks security employee, Michael Shoar, who told the court one of his former colleagues had boasted to him that he was going to "make enough evidence" to get Ms Ryder convicted. Mr Shoar's credibility was put to the test on cross-examination, however, as it emerged he had left Saks on bad enough terms to be banned from the premises.

Whatever the outcome of the case, much speculation will inevitably rest on the make-up and sympathies of the jury, who, as Beverly Hills residents might have more sympathy for a rich, successful and glamorous defendant than they might for a more stereotypical, downtrodden suspected felon.