As information continues to drip out about Annie Leibovitz's disastrous financial situation, her own personal D-Day is fast approaching. What happens on September 8, when her $24 million pawnshop loan comes due?

In November of 2000, if you'd have bet your life against the fact that the man representing Bush in the case of Bush v. Gore would one day lead the fight to legalize gay marriage, you'd be dead now.

Giuseppe Cipriani hasn't been seen on U.S. soil since last December, either because he suspects he may end up in handcuffs if he returns, or because he's been "exploring new business ventures" in far-off locales for the past nine months or so. But just because he isn't physically present—and has left his family's crumbling hospitality empire in the (undoubtedly) capable hands of his teenage sons—doesn't mean you're not allowed to give his (undoubtedly) overworked attorney another headache to deal with. Cipriani, his father Arrigo, and their collection of NYC-based companies, were slapped with (another) class action lawsuit this week by a former employee who claims he was stiffed on wages and never compensated for his overtime work. The suit, which is probably now sitting atop a giant tower of legal paperwork on Cipriani's lawyer's desk, is below.

New York's epic article about Annie Leibovitz in this week's issue is well worth a read, particularly since it sheds a little light on how it is one of the world's highest-paid photographers now finds herself on the brink of financial ruin. (If the only person you'll allow to repair your air-conditioner has to travel to NYC from Vermont to do the work, that's probably not a good sign.) Leibovitz's financial fate will likely be sealed in September when the $24 million loan she secured from Art Capital Group last year is due. Interestingly, though, Leibovitz appears to be hinting that the terms of the loan— which required her to put up the rights to her photos and real estate holdings as collateral—only became apparent to her after the Times reported on Art Capital Group back in February. Friends of the photographer suggest that Leibovitz had no idea she was giving up so much when she took out the loan; they also seem to be shifting some of the blame to Ken Starr, the financial adviser who took the photographer on as a client in 2007 and who was also responsible for introducing Leibovitz to Art Capital Group. Pinning the blame on Starr, who boasts an insanely long list of celebrity clients, may be a hard argument to make.

In your dehydrated Tuesday media column: Sam Zell may be looking for a new business, a discrimination suit against the WSJ, Sharon Waxman has no idea who anyone is, and more!

Some mean person on the internet made a blog saying model Liskula Cohen was a skank, so she took Google to court and got the blog shut down. Now, the skank de grace: the secret name-caller will be revealed.

Monday wasn't good to former Everybody Loves Raymond star Patricia Heaton. First a former assistant filed a lawsuit against her for unpaid wages, then she made a fool of herself on national television. Seriously, you have to see this.

• Polo Ralph Lauren has been hit with a lawsuit for stamping the word "lifeguard" on clothing without permission. Another company is claiming it trademarked the word years ago. [NYP]
• As expected, Escada filed for bankruptcy protection in a German court today. [Bloomberg]
• Is Bravo renewing The Fashion Show for a second season? That's unclear for the time being. [Cut]
• Tory Burch and Georgina Chapman are making cameos on the next season of Gossip Girl. [WWD]
• Now that visiting a tanning a salon is tantamount to sucking on asbestos or consuming toxic nuclear waste, is "pale the new tan"? [NYT]

Daniel K. Stern (remember him?) sued Rita Cosby (remember her?) for libel back in 2007 over her book about Anna Nicole Smith, and a federal district judge ruled yesterday that much of the suit can go forward.

If you were thinking the recent spate of Ponzi schemes has convinced investors to do a bit more due diligence before handing over their cash, think again: A group of a dozen hedge funds have filed a lawsuit against a California businessman named Todd Ault, who they accuse of taking the $4.2 million they gave him for a stock trading venture and instead investing it in a "swingers ranch" in the Catskills. We're thinking Ault's MySpace page should have been a tip off, but feel free to decide for yourself. [NYDN]

There are new details in Art Capital Group's ongoing legal battle with celebrity photographer/pauper Annie Leibovitz: Art Capital has also sued Getty Images, alleging that the giant photo agency tried to undermine its deal with Leibovitz.

Financially-challenged photographer Annie Leibovitz was sued last week by Art Capital Group, the high-end pawn shop that loaned her $24 million last year in exchange for the rights to her photography collection and her collection of real estate holdings in the West Village and upstate New York. It will be some time before we find out whether Leibovitz will get to hang on to her assets, but it seems she's already suffered one minor defeat in court. In a court ruling over whether Getty Images went behind Art Capital's back to negotiate a deal to represent Leibovitz on a freelance basis, New York State's highest court misspelled the name of the "world-renowned photographer" 37 times. Don't you just hate exceptions to the normally reliable "i before e, except after c" rule? [NYS Supreme Court, PDF]

Two women who once worked for Carl Icahn have filed suit against the billionaire investor and his wife, Gail, over harassment they say they endured while working at his firm. Sandra Silva and Valerie Romano claim they were singled them out for abuse because they were "tech-savvy," and this stirred up jealousy in the office because Gail Icahn didn't know how to use email herself. (Go figure.) The two women, who were dismissed in late 2008 and are now seeking $1.5 million in damages, also claim that several execs "commented on their bodies" when they worked there and groped one of them, and that they had to endure ridicule for "having drinks with an unpopular coworker and trying to be friendly with the man who sold office supplies." [NYP]

This is sort of unfortunate, but not really. A federal appeals court today decided the news media will not be permitted access to the wiretaps that were used to bust Emperors Club VIP, the escort agency that employed Ms. Ashley Dupre and brought Eliot Spitzer's political career to a messy end last March.

In your good old-fashioned Friday media column: A legal tiff over SEXTING (are your kids doing it?), the looming end of magazine subscription cards, Dana Milbank needs help, and thieving Oprah is sued, for $1 trillion. Yes.

It's been more than two years since restaurateur (and drama magnet) Nello Balan filed suit against Amy Sacco's Bungalow 8, accusing the club's bouncers of beating him up during a visit to the former hot spot back in May 2006. Nello came forward in the spring of 2007 to say that a bouncer had punched him in the eye and hit him over the head with a metal object (he also said his 21-year daughter was pushed), and the altercation left him with 10 stitches and a fracture to his eye-socket.

Annie Leibovitz has been facing serious financial problems for a number of months now. But things took a turn for the worse last week when Leibovitz was served with a suit by the financial firm that lent her $24 million earlier this year, and she now faces the grim prospect she'll eventually have to relinquish control of her real estate holdings and the rights to her archive of photographs. The big, unanswered question, though, is where, exactly, all the money went. On top of the $24 million she borrowed from Art Capital Group, she takes home an estimated $2 million-a-year salary from Condé Nast, and collects millions for her advertising work. Is she just really bad at managing her money? Or is it something else? Bloomberg News' Katya Kazakina, who suggests Leibovitz might be better off filing for bankruptcy rather than fight her creditors in court, looks into another possible money pit.

It's been a year and a half since John Schaefer was ousted as the chef at Irving Mill, the new American restaurant located near Union Square. (Schaefer was replaced by Ryan Skeen, the rising star who's since left Irving Mill himself and is now running things at Allen & Delancey.) But Schaefer's stint at Irving Mill is now the subject of a contentious, messy dispute between the former Gramercy Tavern executive chef and Irving Mill's owners, Suzanne, Mario, and Sergio Riva.

Last November, Mary Anderson attended a Method Man concert at Houston's House of Blues. Later, she approached Method Man, whom Ms. Anderson was a fan of, for an autograph. He then pulled out a gun and opened fire on her.

In your sizzling Tuesday media column: the future of the media is paid, Newsweek fights the power in Iran, another mag mogul kicks BusinessWeek's tires (made of paper), and Dan Rather's madder'n a lake trout with fiery testicles, at CBS.