Los Angeles- “Charlie’s Angels” star Cameron Diaz is heading to court to testify against a man who helped get her one of her first jobs – a starring role in a soft-core S&M video made during a 1992 photo shoot.

Photographer John Rutter, 41, shot about 20 topless photos and a video of the then-19-year-old Diaz, just two years before her star-turning role in “The Mask.”

Now, the Venice Beach shutterbug is set to stand trial Monday on charges of attempted grand theft, forgery and perjury. An extortion charge against him was dropped last week, but Rutter still faces a maximum of five to six years in jail if convicted.

Prosecutors say that in June 2003 Rutter demanded $3.3 million from Diaz, now 31, to prevent him from selling the images to an unspecified European group, which presumably wanted to exploit them. Rutter claims he was offering the actress first right of refusal out of compassion and that Diaz tricked him into believing they had a deal, when in fact she reported him to the district attorney’s office.

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On Aug. 13, police arrested Rutter and confiscated the photos, video and a personal computer from his apartment. According to his former attorney Ronald Richards, Rutter spent 90 days in jail before he was able to scrape together the $250,000 bail.

“He felt like he got strong-armed by Cameron Diaz’s influence at the DA’s office,” Richards said. “And then to drop the extortion charge, which was the alleged basis of the search warrant, just adds salt on the wound.”

Richards initially told Courttv.com that he represented Rutter, but later mentioned his retainer had not been paid. A week before trial, a new attorney, Sol Levitt, took over Rutter’s case. Levitt told Courttv.com that he tried to have the trial postponed to give him more time to prepare, but a judge had denied his most recent request.

Did she or didn’t she?

Rutter may have created more trouble for himself by procuring what prosecutors say is a phony model-release form. According to author and First Amendment legal analyst Julie Hilden, photographic copyright typically belongs to the photographer, regardless of whether a release has been signed.

“Let’s assume there was no release,” Hilden told Courttv.com. “Then he’d have the copyright, but in using the photographs, he’d run into a lot of legal issues.”

According to Hilden, Diaz could still sue Rutter for civil claims if he tried to make money off the images. “At most, she could sue him for money that he probably doesn’t have anyway,” she said.

But if Diaz’s signature on the May 30, 1992, release is a fake, Rutter faces serious repercussions for a document he technically did not need.

According to court insiders, a forensic document examiner is expected to testify for the prosecution that, after studying dozens of samples of Diaz’s handwriting, he found that the signature on Rutter’s alleged release so closely matches one found on the actress’s publicity photos that it was likely copied with computer-editing software.

“If he forged it, he put himself in a worse position,” Hilden says. “He wouldn’t be in a great position without the release, but committing the crime is worse.”

‘You’re an animal’

Rutter is also claiming he had nothing to do with the recent leak of Diaz’s sexy video on the Internet. In early July, clips of the film, in which the “Angels” star is seen vamping for the camera in fishnets and a leather open-cup bustier, began surfacing in chat rooms and on X-rated websites.

Diaz is topless, pouty and smoking cigarettes throughout most of the video. At one point, the cotton-candy-voiced actress jokes into the camera, “Hi, Mom! I’m coming home in just a couple days, OK? Don’t worry about me.”

“These pictures were not a secret,” Richards said. “She’s basically manipulated the DA’s office to spend an incredible amount of money on this case.”

In fact, the videotape is more campy than lurid. As the young star poses in her peek-a-boob getup, an off-camera voice creepily coos, “You’re an animal, go baby, get hot,” or “stomach, baby, stomach,” when she arches her back too far and her waist shows from under her fetish wear.

In other scenes, Diaz is joined by a dominatrix named Natasha as they pretend to chain-whip a man in a leather mask, loose loincloth and bondage gear.

At 19, Diaz’s early comedic timing is evident during an impromptu sight gag with an air compressor. Blasting her chest with a shot of cold air, the actress lifts a bare breast as if filling it up, “Whoa, look at them!” she quips. “Look at how big they got!”

“When you watch her air-gun her breasts,” Richards says, “It’s embarrassing for her, but it’s obviously not a deep, dark secret she had that my client was exposing.”

Last November, a judge granted a permanent injunction against the sale of the images and also banned Rutter from possessing or publicizing them. They are currently being kept under lock-and-key in a Bank of America safety deposit box in Los Angeles and at the DA’s office.