As we read People's story about how CSI: New York crew members stumbled upon an actual corpse at a downtown L.A. location shoot, we secretly feared that a mysterious dead body turning up near the set of a show about uncovering the stories behind mysterious dead bodies might prove a little too elegant a coincidence to be true. A Defamer operative is already claiming that "discovery" is nothing but a cynical PR stunt meant to take advantage of the too-trusting public's love of a good, accidentally-discovered-mummified-corpse story:

Crew members on a downtown L.A. location shoot for CSI: New York were relieved yesterday when a real corpse discovered in the building where they were filming turned out to be the "mummified" remains of a long-dead tenant, and not the body of a forgotten production assistant who never returned from a curiously prolonged Starbucks run. Reports People:

Realizing, like Survivor, that their own, aging CBS series could use a little free publicity by way of a headline-grabbing controversy, the producers of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation wisely opted out of launching a spinoff entitled CSI: Black People, and instead cast Vanilla Ice-channeling couchhusband Kevin Federline in a guest-starring role. (Plot details are under wraps, though we hear he plays a murder victim ironically strangled to death in his sleep with his own wife-beater by the wealthy dimwit he's been sponging off for years.) Arrangements had been made to give People the exclusive non-story, but a leak occurred, resulting in a stern missive from CBS' publicity department being issued to the entire "CSI Team." A Defamer operative forwarded the e-mail to us: