Ponzi schemer to the stars Ken Starr gets the Vanity Fair treatment this week, along with dozens of A-listers he allegedly scammed. (Sylvester Stallone! Nora Ephron! Walter Cronkite!) But the juiciest stories come from his pole-dancing wife, Diane Passage.

Giuseppe Cipriani fled left the country last year in the wake of a scandal over alleged shady dealings regarding a liquor license for his celebtastic restaurant. He's not "on the lam," see. He simply could not take Bush any longer.

Brad and Angelina enjoy pool sex, Lady Gaga is a confirmed hermaphrodite, Constantine Maroulis gets beat up over Paula Abdul at Ciprianis, Patrick Swayze is recovering nicely, Britney looks good in a white bikini and Paris and Douglas Reinhardt reunite.

One would think the upside of a new Depression would be a return to 1930s Art Deco glamour. But the Rainbow Room, which opened in 1934, is closing its famed New York restaurant.

• Someone in Toronto has Tom Cruise's BlackBerry. The Church of Scientology will disavow any knowledge of the actions needed to get it back in the event an agent is caught or killed. [P6]

Page Six is not just a gossip column; it's the ultimate favor trading tool. Boss Richard Johnson can (within reason) make the in-crowd believe that a particular restaurant is a great place to see and be seen-whether true or not. We took a look back through all of Page Six's coverage for the first six months of this year, and put together the chart you see above, tracking the most-mentioned restaurants. It conforms to one's mental list of New York hot spots, with one exception: Cipriani, whose 21 mentions (for three locations) took the top spot. Now, Cipriani is prestigious in its own musty old way, but it hardly fits in with the rest of the list, which is full of buzz-worthy celebrity nightspots and the odd mogul hangout. Favor trading illustrated? Below are some of the more press release-like Cipriani "gossip" items P6 saw fit to print this year; judge for yourself: 6/22/08

This is Joshua David Stein. I'm back briefly not to discuss Project Runway, which I haven't watched and which Richard and MisterHippity have done quite well already, (consensus: it sucks!) but to discuss the case of Cipriani. It's a topic of abiding interest for me. I wrote a large article on Cipriani for Page Six magazine a couple of weeks ago in which I predicted that empire's demise. Two days ago, however, Jeanique Green, the newest member of the State Liquor Authority which is responsible for deciding who shall and shall not serve liquor in New York State voted to accept a settlement on behalf of Cipriani of $500,000 rather than revoking the liquor licenses of its New York locations. Basically, Cipriani got into the weeds by failing to list Arrigo Cipriani, a felon, on their liquor licenses. Though Cipriani gets to live another day, I argue, Ms. Green's deciding vote may be the pollice verso for a legal and vibrant New York nightlife. Sure, you can call me out for having sour grapes. It would have been nice if my piece was as prophetic as the Follieri one before it. I had been operating on the premise that the SLA would follow the rule of law, one of the cornerstones of democracy. It is, after all, a premise upon which good governance rests. The equal and impartial application of laws, a government of laws and not of men is crucial to our democracy. As Montesqueieueie writes, "Law should be like death, which spares no one." Sadly, after heartfelt pleas from the Post's Steve Cuozzo (with whom I work and whose work I generally admire), who claimed closing would "cost more than 1,000 jobs, leave our most iconic celebration spaces empty for the foreseeable future, and knock the fizz out of the city's culture of excess - the golden goose that keeps the talent-fleeing, jobs-hemorrhaging "Empire State" afloat." Substantively what he's saying is, "Well, even though Cipriani broke the law—laws which we, as a community, have voted on as necessary to safeguard public welfare—it would be too disruptive to actually enforce the laws." This is dangerous since it is the same logic that allows sitting heads of state who happen to be war criminals to escape prosecution, the same logic that allows powerful corporations to continue to burgle the public, that keep the rich and powerful and corrupt all of the above. It's disappointing Cuozz would make these bogus and dangerous claims. But it's shocking that Jeanique Green would act on them. As Chris Shott reports in the Observer, Green explained her shit decision by saying she was concerned with "the impact of our decision on the individuals who are working there." This is myopic and wrong. By letting Cipriani escape unscathed and by seriously undermining the SLA, Green is sending a signal to other restaurateurs of substantial size that they too are above the law. Instead of worrying about Cipriani employees—something the Ciprianis don't do themselves—she should have been concerned at the precedent she's setting. She put a Band Aid on a cut and simultaneously shot herself—and her city—in the foot. What does she care? I'm sure Ms. Green is enjoying some complimentary bellini on the house.

The Ciprianis may lose their liquor licenses for being tax cheats, which would put a major crimp in their party style. [NYDN]