A porn star draping boobs over an employee's head. Lapdances on the company dime. $50 million in back taxes. These are just some of the charges Penthouse publisher FriendFinder Networks is facing from an ex-employee.
Cartier would really, really appreciate it if you didn't take their jewelry, copy it, and then post cheap imitations on your website with the words "inspired by Cartier" positioned next to each item. Yesterday, the company filed suit against Lisa Hsieh and her website LisaStyles.com for "willingly committing trademark and copyright infringement" by selling its various "Cartier-inspired" goods. Following time-honored Cartier tradition, the jewelry giant is not just asking a court to stop Hsieh from doing what she's doing: It's also seeking to have the infringing items turned over to Cartier so they can be crushed to bits. The lesson to be learned: Don't mess with the makers of luxury goods when they're struggling enough as it is due to the recession. The full suit is below.
Another week, another lawsuit against a restaurant on behalf of waiters who claim they were denied minimum wage and stiffed on tips. This week's target for the very prolific lawyer Maimon Kirschenbaum: Japonais and its owners Miae Lim, Lester Burgher, Richard Wahlstedt and Jeffrey Beers. If you're keeping count at home, you can now add Japonais to a list that includes Nobu, Jean Georges, Le Cirque, Bouley, BondSt, Balthazar, 1OAK, One Little W. 12, 40/40, B.B. King's, Heartland Brewery, Haru, BLT Steak, BLT Prime, BLT Fish, and Wolfgang's Steakhouse. The full suit is below.
The condo conversion of 20 Pine Street has been plagued with problems for ages. One of the first conversions to come along in the financial district, the Shaya Boymelgreen-developed, Michael Shvo-marketed building was supposed to be finished in 2007. It wasn't, of course, which led to the first lawsuit back in August 2008 when a buyer argued that 20 Pine had been misleading about the building's completion date and had refused to rescind the buyer's contract. The situation hasn't improved much since then: The pool and gym remain unfinished, and just two weeks ago Shvo announced that construction work on the building's amenities would be suspended for a week "to concentrate on completing about 50 residential units." Now it seems other buyers have had enough. A Massachusetts woman who paid $925,000 for an apartment in 2006 (as well as an additional $16,000 for two storage units) filed a lawsuit of her own this week, and is now demanding that her deposit be returned, too. The full suit appears after the jump.
Plastic surgeon Cap Lesesne is facing a nasty lawsuit from a former patient. The doctor who once dated Katie Couric, reportedly worked on Hillary Clinton, and authored 2005's Confessions of a Park Avenue Plastic Surgeon, has been accused by a British woman of bungling her nose job, facelift, and cheek-implant procedure, and for removing one of her breast implants "against her will," whatever that means. [NYDN, NYP]
Lawyers for ConnectU are bragging about winning a $65 million settlement for their clients from Facebook. But what did Divya Narendra and Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss really get from Mark Zuckerberg? Almost nothing.
Poor Jeffrey Epstein hasn't even been released from prison yet and he's already finding himself in more legal hot water. Palm Beach Post gossip columnist Jose Lambiet reports the shadowy money manager, who is currently serving an 18-month prison sentence for soliciting a minor for prostitution, is now being sued by the contractor who built him a larger boat dock for his $10.7 million Palm Beach mansion. Apparently Jeffrey failed to pay a $105,000 bill, and the contractor says he's been trying to collect the debt since August. In Epstein's defense, though, he has been a wee bit tied up recently. [Page2Live, previously]
Following months of rumors and allegations about his bad behavior, pervy Box boss Simon Hammerstein has finally been slapped with a sexual harassment lawsuit by the Porcelain Twinz, two of the venue's best-known performers until they quit last summer. The burlesque dancers have been putting on a kinky act for years, but they claim it never involved engaging in "incestuous sexual relations with each other," at least not until they met Hammerstein and he forced them to put on "twincest" shows at the venue. They also say he demanded oral sex in exchange for free housing and, later, so he would sign on as a guarantor on a rental apartment. That doesn't strike us as the worst deal in the world (even accounting for Hammerstein's all-around grossness), but we imagine a judge probably won't see it that way.
What's Facebook really worth? The fast-growing social network is adding to its 150 million users effortlessly. But revenues aren't growing as easily. And that has Mark Zuckerberg's company tied up in legal and financial knots.
Add Wolfgang and Peter Zwiener to the list of restaurateurs facing a lawsuit filed by Maimon Kirschenbaum. The most despised attorney in New York restaurant history is now taking aim at Wolfgang's Steakhouse (and the Zwieners), slapping a class action suit against the company on behalf of employees at its Park Avenue and Greenwich Street locations. The suit accuses the Zwieners of failing to pay workers minimum wage and withholding overtime pay. It's basically the same suit that Kirshenbaum has filed against every other restaurant in town, a list that includes Nobu, Jean Georges, Le Cirque, Bouley, BondSt, Balthazar, Haru, BLT Steak, BLT Prime. The only bad news for Kirshenbaum is that at the rate he's going—and given the number of restaurants closing down these days—he'll probably be out of people to sue by 2011 or so. Maimon's latest legal offensive appears below.
How much did it cost to put a lingering dispute over the creation of Facebook to rest? $65 million, according to the lawyers who hammered out the — oops — confidential settlement with rival ConnectU.
It seems the East Hampton town board has followed through on its threat to sue Ron Baron, the dune-destroying billionaire who installed an 800-foot concrete barrier on his 40-acre Further Lane property last year and has been battling the local authorities ever since. The Post reports that Baron has been ordered to appear in court on March 16th, where he'll face eight code violations for his failure to secure the proper permits and for construction work that led to the destruction of several 3,000-year-old dunes. Baron could face four years in jail if he's ultimately convicted. But we doubt Baron will get to that point. Even if he is someone who once likened his battle to get gay men to stop having sex on the stretch of beach in front of his house to the war in Vietnam.
It looks like Martha Stewart won't be using a Turbochef oven when she settles into her Greenwich kitchen this evening to bake her usual batch of 17 apple pies. On Tuesday, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia slapped Turbochef with a lawsuit for allegedly reneging on a deal to hand over $3 million in Turbochef stock and $5 million in cash in exchange for Martha promoting the line of stoves on both her and Emeril Lagasse's TV programs. (Martha bought out Emeril last year.) MSLO's lawyers claim Martha followed through on her end—and it appears she once had a cozy relationship with the Turbochef folks—but the relationshop later soured and now Martha is asking for $15 million in damages. Let's all hope that MSLO prevails, so the company can finally invest in some much-needed office decorations. The full lawsuit is after the jump.
