Actress Seeks Divorce From Husband Lee

Just hours after jailed Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee was charged Thursday with spousal and child abuse, his actress wife, Pamela, filed court papers to end a three-year marriage that broke down as a tape of the couple having sex was being hawked over the Internet.

Pamela Anderson Lee, who starred on “Baywatch,” cited irreconcilable differences in papers filed in Superior Court in downtown Los Angeles even as her now-estranged husband remained in custody on $1-million bail.

She seeks custody of the couple’s children, Brandon, 20 months, and Dylan Jagger, 2 months--and is asking the court to restore her legal name to Pamela Denise Anderson.

Lee, meanwhile, is scheduled to be arraigned today in Superior Court in Malibu on charges he assaulted his wife during an argument Tuesday evening--the day after she appeared on the “‘Tonight Show.”

Lee also was charged with possessing a gun and could face more jail time if he is found to be in violation of probation. He had pleaded no contest in a 1996 case to battering freelance photographer Henry Trappler during a scuffle outside the Viper Room, a West Hollywood nightclub.

Lee was placed last month on 24 months’ probation, ordered to pay $17,500 restitution and required to seek anger management counseling.

Trappler’s lawyer, Gloria Allred, said Lee has not paid the restitution. If it is not paid before a March 11 compliance hearing, she said, she will push for a probation violation hearing.

Meanwhile, the trial of Trappler’s civil case is scheduled to begin next month, but probably will be postponed if Lee remains in custody.

The Lees have been entangled in a number of civil cases involving Seattle-based Internet Entertainment Group and its sales of their honeymoon sex tape, which was reported stolen from a garage safe two years ago. Pamela Lee also is seeking to block the group from peddling another sex tape, this time featuring her with Poison’s Bret Michaels.

It was the second time Pamela Lee had filed divorce papers. Her first action, in November 1996, was soon dropped after Lee reportedly wooed her with romantic gestures that included riding up to their Malibu home atop a white steed.

Pamela Lee, 30, summoned deputies to that gated house on Mulholland Highway about 7:45 p.m. Tuesday, complaining that her husband had attacked her during an argument.

Deputies, who noted that her back was reddened and that one of her fingernails was broken and bloody, promptly arrested the 35-year-old Lee.

Through her publicist, Pamela Lee initially called the incident “a private matter” and said she and the children were “doing well.” Later, the publicist, Marleah Leslie, issued a second, more detailed statement in which Pamela Lee alleged that her husband assaulted her while she held Dylan, and in front of Brandon.

“Pamela intends to vigorously cooperate in the prosecution of her husband, and is looking to the district attorney and all other appropriate authorities to protect her and her children,” the statement said.