Why Was Leah McSweeney From 'Real Housewives' Arrested?
By Lillian Marx
Leah McSweeney has made her Real Housewives of New York debut, and so has her mugshot. The surprisingly gritty photo shows up in the Season 12 premiere, and while it may be a little bit embarrassing, the arrest actually set the course for Leah’s entire career.
It all started one fateful night in 2002, the 37-year-old reality star recently explained to People. Leah was enjoying an evening out with a casual boyfriend at the Hammerstein Ballroom in NYC. At 4 a.m., everyone spilled out of the venue. The police tried to disperse the throng, but the cops made a big mistake when they pulled Leah out of a make-out session with her friend.
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“I felt him being pulled away from me, and there was five police officers beating him up,” she explained to People. “It was really scary. And I had a half-empty plastic water bottle with me and I threw it — not even directly at someone, just threw it in that direction. It was just a total knee-jerk reaction. But it hit a cop in the back.”
Leah alleges that the officer then punched her and threw her to the ground, knocking out a tooth. She ended up in jail, on the Fourth of July—which doesn’t sound like a great way to celebrate American freedom.
Still, she didn’t make out too badly in the end. In fact, Leah filed a lawsuit against the NYPD, settled it for $75,000, and used the money to launch Married to the Mob, the influential women’s streetwear company that she still runs today.
The mugshot is definitely worth checking out, though, and so is Leah’s first-ever season of RHONY, airing Thursdays on Bravo.