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Last Sunday's LAT ran a story about Ryan Kavanaugh, a 33-year-old middleman between Hollywood and the secretive and incredibly confusing world of hedge funds. They reported that Kavanaugh, a former dotcom financier with a long list of EP credits to his name, would sell the private investment groups on "slates" of movies, investing hundreds of millions in a dozen films at a time (to lessen the impact of any single stinker). Of course, this is Hollywood, where stinkers come in biblical proportions, and their investment quickly dwindled to barely the value of a concession stand Combo Pack. Now, armed with Scary Hollywood Lawyer Martin Singer, Kavanaugh is fighting back, claiming the entire piece was planted by his publinemesis Mike Sitrick, who is currently suing Kavanaugh for "allegedly mismanaging a multimillion-dollar investment."

Singer told Page Six that former LAT deputy business editor Jim Bates was once the boss of the two reporters who wrote the piece, and now works for Sitrick at his firm. He also hinted at a defamation suit unless the LAT printed an apology. Approached for comment, a spokeswoman for the paper only said: "We're not aware there's any controversy. We haven't heard from Mr. Kavanaugh since the article was published."