Three Celebrities. Two Major Felony Charges. One NYC Courthouse.

Three people we couldn't think have anything in common does so, in fact.

Ja Rule, Kelly Killoren Bensimon, and Plaxico Burres all appeared in NYC courts yesterday.

A tinted-window black sport utility vehicle rolled up, and the clicking started. Out stepped the rangy Plaxico Burress, the New York Giants’ wide receiver, buttoning his gray suit as he strutted toward a second-floor courtroom, where he was due for a brief update on the gun possession charges against him.

Burress’s court date happened to coincide with that of two other celebrities: Kelly Bensimon, a star of the reality show “The Real Housewives of New York City,” and Jeff Atkins, the rapper known as Ja Rule. While Burress’s appearance was nothing short of a spectacle, Ja Rule's and Kelly's came and went relatively unnoticed.

The buzz all week had been that Plaxico's lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, was in intense negotiations with prosecutors to spare his client the 3½-year minimum sentence that his charges call for.

Just minutes after he entered the courthouse, Kelly, who is facing assault charges that she slapped her former boyfriend, arrived.

After her case was adjourned to June 8, she came out the back door, where three photographers were waiting. After a few steps, a camera crew from the show “Extra” sprinted around the corner to collect footage.

When Ja Rule, who faces the same charges as Plaxico, saw the morning horde, he turned the other way.

“I kind of snuck in another route,” he said later, in an empty courtroom. “It feels great,” Ja Rule said of the limited attention. “You don’t want these issues to be such a media circus.”

via