Writer on Lam for 2 Years Arrested

LOS ANGELES — Romance writer Barbara Joslyn ended her two-year run from justice last week by thrusting a knife into her chest and trying to elude police as officers pounded on the door of her $40-a-night Century City motel room.

Joslyn, 48, was in the jail ward of County-USC Medical Center on Saturday, recovering from her wounds.

The grim close to the fugitive chapter of Joslyn’s life offset its stylish start, when she fled New York after being convicted in 1995 of stealing a Picasso sketch from a friend’s Park Avenue apartment.

New York law enforcement officials expect Joslyn to be returned there to begin a four-year prison sentence, but she must first face charges that she failed to pay a fine for a credit card fraud conviction in Beverly Hills.

FBI agents and LAPD officers confirmed Saturday that they had arrested Joslyn early Tuesday morning at the Stars Inn on Santa Monica Boulevard.

The officers knocked on the door of Joslyn’s room about 7 a.m., attempting to serve her with a federal arrest warrant for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

Joslyn refused to open the door, which the officers then forced open, according to the motel’s manager, Maritza Guerrero.

Guerrero said the officers then sprayed tear gas into the room, and Joslyn--who had apparently stabbed herself--fled out of the bathroom window.

She was caught behind the motel and was taken to County-USC for treatment, police said.

Joslyn, who had lived in West Hollywood, is the author of two romance novels, “Strange Sins” and “Private Dancers.”

Joslyn confessed in September 1994 to joining Australian film producer Ian Pringle in a burglary of a friend’s apartment.

On a trip to New York City, Joslyn visited the apartment of longtime friend Crawford Greenleaf, widower of an heir to the Revlon fortune.

Joslyn told police that when she left the apartment to have lunch with Greenleaf, she was able to leave the door ajar.

Pringle then snuck in and made off with the Picasso, a painting by Edouard Vuillard and other valuables worth $700,000.

Joslyn fled New York while awaiting sentencing in August 1995. She told a New York Times reporter then that serving jail time would be “tantamount to a death sentence.”