One of O.J.'s Las Vegas henchmen took a plea bargain, and made the following statement: "O.J. said 'Hey, just bring some firearms. He said ... 'we won't have to use 'em, but ... just to look tough, you know, so that these people know that, you know, we're here for business."' That constitutes conspiracy under Nevada law, making it look less and less likely that Simpson will walk away from this a free man—but when have we heard that one before? [USA Today]
Accompanied by the usual retinue of paparazzi photographers and local news crews that document her every frappuccino run, conspicuously public lunch date, and spur-of-the-moment shopping trip to the Neglected Baby Gap, embattled onetime popstar Britney Spears reported to the Van Nuys police station under the cover of darkness last night to be booked for her failure to leave a "Sorry, y'all, I'm bad at parking!" note on the car she struck in a Petco parking lot back in August. The routine processing unfolded without incident, according to a police spokesperson whose description of his experience with Spears recalls the vague pride of a pet owner whose Chihuahua successfully evacuated its bowels outside of the house for the first time:
A follow-up to the Anna Nicole investigation we mentioned earlier: Attorney General Jerry Brown told reporters that there is "serious evidence" that something fishy went on with Anna Nicole's death. Really, Jer? Maybe after he cracks this case, he can look into whether The Hills is fake or not. [foxnews.com]
Having within the space of just a few weeks been stripped of her two children, a leather bustier, and yet another a pair of overly constricting panties, a vulnerable-like-never-before Britney Spears (whose new album drops Oct. 30—check out the fierce cover art!) made a rare appearance in court today, in the hopes of convincing Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon to reconsider allowing overnight visits with her sons:
Michelle Rodriguez will be returning to jail, TMZ reports alongside one of their trademarked mid-hiccup screen grabs, for having repeatedly violated the terms of her DUI parole. (More specifically for lying about having fulfilled her 30 days of community service.) She was sentenced to 120 days in jail, though the judge did not specify if those were Richie days or Hilton days, meaning the Lost casualty could wind up again out in under five hours and partying the same night at the Roosevelt, or forced to live out the full four months among a "primal crew" of like-minded lady convincts who live for their Friday night soap-dice craps games and extreme salt-fighting championships.
We're one step closer to the end of the waking nightmare represented by Kiefer Sutherland's ongoing DUI case, as his Hollywood superlawyer has entered a no contest plea on the actor's behalf. Now we have to wait until December 21st for the sentencing, hoping that he receives the wrist-slap that will allow him to get back to the important business of being The World's Drinking Buddy™ as quickly as possible. [TMZ]
Actor Tom Sizemore, currently carrying out a jail sentence for having violated the terms of his parole after pleading no contest to tweaking outside a Bakersfield Sheraton, is due for release next month, at which point under the state's stringent "Three Strikes and You're Seriously Fucked, Sizemore" law, another arrest would put him behind bars for four years. That sobering fact is more than enough deterrent to straighten up for good, Sizemore told the Bakersfield Californian:
Even after his departure from a 35-year tenure hosting the Price is Right, cat-sterilization fanatic Bob Barker still finds himself party to yet another in a long string of harassment lawsuits from disgruntled female employees: nine in 13 years, to be exact, with all plaintiffs represented by the same guy—attorney and mutesmodels' rights advocate, Nick Alden. The latest complainant suggests she was demoted from P.A. to the far more demeaning rope-and-pulley-tugging duty after she testified against Barker in an earlier lawsuit:
Accused serial rapist/fashion designer Anand Jon Alexander —a hyphenate we hope we don't start seeing more of on the celebrity-styling landscape in the months to come—has been indicting by a grand jury for having allegedly lured 20 girls and young women to Los Angeles with promises of modeling opportunities. (That's an impressive gain of 8 more victims and 22 separate counts since he was charged last April.) From the KNBC report:
If you worship at the Church of Family Guy, you're undoubtedly familiar with the ditty "I Need a Jew," sung at the precise moment of episode "When You Wish Upon a Weinstein" when Griffin patriarch Peter realizes he's helpless to manage his finances without the aid of an arithmetically-astute Member of the Tribe. A full four years after the episode first aired, the copyright owner of Pinocchio classic "When You Wish Upon a Star" is now suing "Fox Broadcasting Co., the Cartoon Network and others" for infringement. A Fox spokesperson had "no comment," and its suspected their lawyers are currently mapping their strategy: They've already eliminated playing the "fair Jew-use" card, as the song-parody managed to be penned by the single goyische comedy-writer named Seth currently working in Hollywood.
Having within a span of 48 hours been subjected to the humiliating loss of her children, the cruel indifference of DMV employees, and extremely uncomfortable small-talk with Dave Matthews on the Peninsula's breakfast buffet line, Britney Spears struggles to maintain composure through what is arguably her rock-bottomest moment yet. In court today, however, came a small ray of hope, as Commissioner Scott Gordon softened his initial ruling :
A fittingly anticlimactic coda to the Phil Spector mistrial came today, as the members of his defense team—who by now should have been sitting in adjoining hammocks in a tropical locale, clinking coconut cups over never having to deal with their mushroom-headed client again—have decided to move on from the case entirely:
The rare olive branch in the ongoing Charlie Sheen-Denise Richards divorce came in an e-mail dated Aug. 24, when, according to court documents, Sheen apologized for a wide array of regrettable remarks he made about his ex-wife and her family, including "a comment about your poor Mom," "your abilities as a mother," and "my pigheaded assertion that you pressed the button that detonated the second tower." Fox411 has revisited the papers to find what, exactly, was contained in those enraged correspondences he so desperately wishes he could unsend:
Though it was Larry Birkhead who openly swore he'd sue Rita Cosby, to use the legal parlance, "back into the MSNBC rat-hole from which she first produced her twitching rodent snout," it is Howard K. Stern, the second half of the all-male coupling she licentiously described in Blonde Ambition, who's first to file suit:
The weekend brought tragic news, as David Hans "the Sultan of Sleaze" Schmidt—a modern day adventurer who braved dense refuse-bin jungles and abandoned U-Store-It crypts in search of priceless, celebrity-smut treasures—was found dead in his Arizona home of an apparent suicide, where he sat under house arrest waiting sentencing for attempting to extort Tom Cruise for $1 million. The LAT reviews some of Schmidt's greatest hits:
We'll admit to perhaps being in the tiniest amount of denial about this Kiefer Sutherland DUI situation, as we spent most of the week trying to convince ourselves that the story was just some kind of hallucinatory side effect of our own Tuesday morning hangover. But then news arrives about charges being officially filed today and it becomes a little harder to ignore the fact that America's most lovable, belt-sander-wielding, Geneva-convention-violating counterterrorist (see, there we go again, emotionally defending ourselves by imagining he's as invulnerable as Jack Bauer) could be in some real jeopardy:
While repeat DUI-offender Michelle Rodriguez's employment woes have been temporarily staved off, having won a role in James Cameron's hotly anticipated Avatar, her legal troubles continue to come up on her like a Spam-and-cheese sandwich after one too many after-work Scorpion Bowls. At issue is an L.A. parole violation for her drunk driving arrest in Hawaii, for which she was sentenced to 60 days in jail, and which, in typical celebrity justice fashion, turned into 4 hours and 27 minutes of hard time, and 30 mandated days of community service. Now prosecutors are claiming she came up short, and lied about the days she claimed she did work:
Were those 82 horrifying minutes of incarceration not punishment enough for expectant mom Nicole Richie? She'll now have to endure 18 months of anti-drunk-driving education, much of which she'll spend sending in the back of the room, rolling her eyes and complaining to a classmate, "Hell-oooo? Don't these idiots know I was on pot and Vicodin when I drove the wrong way on the 134, not booze? Can you wake me up when we get that part?" [People]
CNN.com is reporting that Judge Larry Paul Fidler has just declared a Phil Spector mistrial, the hung jury still split 10-2. (That means there's been three converts since the original 7-5, but we don't yet know if favor of what.) We're not sure what we're supposed to be feeling right now; we're mulling outrage, but then we start picturing that adorable Great Dane and that parade of fun wigs and we just can't seem to muster it—which could very likely be the same thought process going through the minds of those stubborn holdouts.
