This Article is From Dec 20, 2013

Nigella Lawson's ex-assistants acquitted of fraud

Nigella Lawson's ex-assistants acquitted of fraud

File photo of Nigella Lawson.

London: Two former assistants to celebrity cook Nigella Lawson and her former husband have been acquitted of fraud.

A jury at London's Isleworth Crown Court found sisters Elisabetta and Francesca Grillo not guilty Friday.

The Grillos were accused of using credit cards loaned to them by Lawson and her former husband, Charles Saatchi, for household expenses to spend 685,000 pounds (more than $1 million) on luxury clothes, accessories and rooms at high-end hotels.

The fraud trial has been overshadowed by revelations about the domestic life of Lawson and Saatchi, who divorced in July after he was photographed grabbing the celebrity cook's neck outside a London restaurant.

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