Beauty queen can't just say nyet

NEW YORK - A former Miss Russia was charged Wednesday with forging a prescription for painkillers on a pad stolen from her psychiatrist's office.

Anna Malova was arrested yesterday afternoon by the state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement at a Manhattan pharmacy after she filled a prescription for 85 pills of the painkiller Vicodin, prosecutors said.

Authorities were notified by Malova's doctor, who reported the prescription pad stolen from her office shortly after Malova left there Feb. 24. They told pharmacies in the area to be on the lookout.

"I don't know what happened," she told a reporter for the Fox 5 News television show, which had been tipped off to the arrest and was waiting for her when she left the pharmacy.

Malova, 38, was charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance, forgery and criminal possession of stolen property.

Malova has pleaded not guilty in a similar case in which she is was accused of stealing a prescription pad from another doctor - a psychiatrist who specializes in addiction - and using it to fill a prescription for 90 Vicodin pills.

Malova, a tall blonde with a wide smile, was Miss Russia in 1998 and once finished in the Top 10 in the Miss Universe pageant. She had been living in New York and was a physician in her native country though not licensed to practice medicine in the United States, according to her statements at the 1998 pageant.