Ashley Dupre won't be the only person in Eliot Spitzer's life making headlines tomorrow. Hours before her primetime debut, Eliot's 84-year-old father Bernard Spitzer will be making an appearance of his own when he turns up in court to testify in his own defense in connection with charges he fired four men from one of his apartment buildings because they're African-American. (Interestingly, Spitzer family nemesis Roger Stone is advising the four men for free.) We're going to go ahead and assume Silda won't be watching the action unfold at either event.

Mark "The Maverick, when it comes to blogs and also finance" Cuban is proclaiming his innocence, in detail! Cuban, the mouthy tech billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks, was charged with the world's least sophisticated insider trading scheme by the SEC earlier this week. He issued a rote statement the same day denying the charges, and lamented that he wished he could say more. Well now he's saying more! Cuban's basic defense: Yes, I sold a bunch of stock after the CEO of a company I partially owned told me confidential, nonpublic information that I knew would hurt the stock price. But I never agreed to keep the information confidential, so there! Then he says (through his lawyer) that the CEO of said company is full of shit because he can't even remember the conversation. They posted this excerpt of an interview with the CEO:

Last week an Ohio woman filed suit against Victoria's Secret for selling itchy bras allegedly manufactured with formaldehyde. Now another woman has decided to jump on the bandwagon! In a Federal class action lawsuit filed on Monday, Jerilyn Amaya alleges that Victoria's Secret "fraudulently concealed" the fact that its undergarments cause "allergic reactions, contact dermatitis, blistering, itching, hives, rashes, scarring, [and] systemic reactions." Sounds painful! Amaya is now asking a court to impose punitive damages on the company on behalf of herself and any other consumers affected by the faulty bras, a group that, we assume, does not include Adriana Lima and Alessandra Ambrosio, both of whom appeared to be blister-free when they walked the catwalk for Victoria's Secret in Miami this past weekend. Amaya's full lawsuit is after the jump.

That whole Project Runway lawsuit, between the Weinstein Company and the television conglomerate they dissed, NBC/Universal, is never going to end. Well, not if Harvey Weinstein and NBC head brass Jeff Zucker can't play nice. The New York Times did a little status update for the lawsuit this morning (basically everything is the same: jilted ex-lover doesn't want to let the fashion design show go to its new middle-aged girlfriend Lifetime, because of first refusal contracts, allegedly) that brings up some bitchy new details about their relationship. Basically, Zucker thought the two honchos were besties that he'd never screw NBC over, but Weinstein says nuh-uh:

♦ New York's Adam Platt hands out four stars to Drew Nieporent's Corton this week, praising chef Paul Liebrandt's cuisine as "technically complex without being exhibitionist." [NYM]
♦ David Chang's Momofuku Bakery & Milk Bar opened on Saturday. Grub Street has rounded up the public reception. [GS]
♦ A handful of spots including Marquee and the Tribeca Grand have been denied permits by the State Liquor Authority to stay open late on New Year's Eve. [NYP]
♦ A detailed history of the epic battle between Da Silvano's Silvano Marchetto and Bar Pitti's Giovanni Tognozzi. [Page Six Magazine]

Sheikh Abdulla Bin Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa is Bahraini royalty and was, at one time, a close pal of pop megastar turned lagoon creature Michael Jackson. But now, sigh, one old friend is suing the other. Jackson spent six months living on the small desert island in the Persian Gulf three years ago. See, he'd just been acquitted on child molestation charges and needed some time to decompress. He and the Sheik were friends, and supposedly they cooked up some big plans for a Jackson comeback. The Sheik gave Jackson lots of money and equipment, and even wrote some songs himself! And they actually recorded one of the Sheik compositions. But then Jackson decided that he didn't want to make a record with the Sheik after all, even though he'd spent the money and used the equipment:

So it turns out "crazy" old Dan Rather has turned up some actual, you know, evidence for his theory of a vast right-wing conspiracy to take him down at CBS News four years ago: CBS memos show the guy who led the "investigation" into Rather's 60 Minutes story on the president's Air National Guard service was appointed after getting "high marks from the G.O.P." Another Republican was rejected after being deemed not sufficiently right-wing by a CBS lobbyist and executives. Craven CBS News suits even considered having Rather's work reviewed by Ann Coulter and various other terrible right-wing demagogues:

"The real issue is Intel does not have parts to support the April timeframe." Remember the class-action lawsuit over Vista Capable PCs that lack the graphics power to run Vista's Aero interface? TechFlash has published the 29-page court document with Microsoft's internal emails. Intel CEO Paul Otellini personally intervened to convince Microsoft to lower the standards so that an entire generation of underpowered, non-upgradable PCs would be deemed Vista Capable. I know — I bought one. Microsoft computer science guy Jim Allchin was "apoplectic" over the appallingly bad idea. But Digg users never explode in rage at Intel. Once again Redmond's brightest, hardest-working tech leaders have stabbed themselves in the face.

Anthony Michaels was told by Classmates.com, the world's most annoying social network, that his old school buddies might be looking for him. Michaels upgraded and paid the gold membership fee. In exchange, he found out a harsh reality: No one was actually looking for him. Michaels is now taking Classmates.com to court for fraudulent billing practices. Anthony, maybe you should use Facebook to round up some friends and make it a class-action lawsuit! [Wired]

Earlier today we told you how oft-sued American Apparel chief Dov Charney is being sued again—this time by Roberto Hernandez, an ex-AA employee who says he was fired from his IT job in 2006 after he refused Dov Charney's request to cook the books to make the company look more financially attractive. His complaint also includes descriptions of AA as a pervy workplace where Charney held staff meetings in the nude. But there's a new development: a source at AA has just sent us a statement that they say Hernandez himself wrote in August, 2006 defending Dov Charney from an earlier lawsuit, contradicting some of same allegations that Hernandez himself is now making: According to our source, Hernandez wrote this statement in 2006—just three months before he was fired—to counter the allegations of Mary Nelson, who sued Dov claiming sexual harassment. Hernandez defends the work environment at AA:

Hurry up and get gay married in Connecticut right now before the voters ban it. Because today it's totally legal! Eight couples sued the state to allow the gay marriages, because Connecticut's civil union law was kinda-sorta unconstitutional, and they won! And today one of those couples, Barbara and Robin Levine-Ritterman, filled out the gay marriage paperwork that will destroy forever your traditional marriage paperwork. So hey, you lose some, you win some, right? You still got Massachusetts too! What lovely places for gay marriages! California can go to hell. New England's like Lesbian Vegas right now. [NYT]

Remember Fred Tanne, the lawyer who sued his estranged wife (along with her alleged lover and father) for giving him herpes? Bad news: The STD test results are in and it turns out that Fred and Amy (left) do, indeed, have herpes. The problem is that they don't have the same type of herpes, which means Fred didn't contract it from his wife. Awkward day at the offices of Kirkland & Ellis! [Above the Law]

Oh Dov Charney, when will you stop being sued for various sexual and financial shenanigans? The pervy, pacing American Apparel boss has been sued yet again. Just last month he was dealing with a sexual harassment case from an old employee; now, another former employee says that Dov tried to get him to inflate the company's books in order to draw in outside investors. Just your average financial fraud allegation, until Dov trotted out his accuser's old "lover":

Why did electric carmaker Tesla Motors lose its trade-secrets case against rival Fisker Automotive? We're no legal eagles, but a tipster suggests Tesla general counsel Craig Harding was distracted by his intramural extracurriculars:

A new workplace harassment and wrongful termination lawsuit has blown the doors wide open on the world of "branding agents"—even oilier than a regular agent, these Audi-leasing Hollywood barnacles can transform your garden-variety Jessica Simpson into a Jessica Simpson: The Jean. Todd Shemarya, the man named in the suit, was one such brand agent. Perhaps even the biggest, Variety reports, having handled endorsements and brokered baby photos for the likes of Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Aniston, and Salma Hayek. So what is plaintiff Heather Devlin, a fired Shemarya assistant, accusing her ex-boss of? For starters, pooping in a doorless bathroom for all the office to see. And making fun of Brad Pitt's wee! And much, much more! From Courthousenews.com:

Some dude in Hollywood named Todd Shemarya is getting sued by his ex-assistant, who claims that he sexually harassed her and was a big racist and walked around naked at work and several other unsavory things. The original story noted that Shemarya's firm " bills itself as the "number one" talent agency in the world" that claims to represent a slew of A-List stars like Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio. Naturally this snowballed, and yesterday Page Six called Shemarya "A TOP Hollywood talent agent - whose roster includes Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Aniston and Matthew McConaughey." But one brave writer at Variety had the balls to point out: Todd Shemarya is nobody:

Despite the frequency with which willowy, young models end up shacking up with fat, old billionaires, Elite Model Management would like to make it very clear that it is not an escort agency. You cannot just pay some enormous fee, pick a stick-thin girl from a lineup, and then take her into a room for some "companionship." This explains why the modeling agency was none too pleased when it found out that a Manhattan escort agency was using the Elite name (and the domain elitemodels.cc) to market $7,500 prostitutes.

Tony Fadell, the head of Apple's iPod division, is exiting Steve Jobs's reality distortion field. While Fake Steve Jobs likes to take credit for inventing the frigging iPod, its real mastermind is Tony Fadell, who took his plans for an MP3 player to Apple in 2001 as a consultant. His replacement: Former IBM chip expert Mark Papermaster, whose erstwhile employer is suing Apple to prevent him from taking a job there. That Papermaster is replacing Fadell makes its lawsuit even stranger; it is seeking to enforce a noncompete clause in his contract, but a job overseeing MP3 players and cell phones hardly seems a competitive threat to IBM. Fadell is planning to take some time off Pity. Since he joined Apple, Fadell's homepage has turned into a placeholder. We were looking forward to the return of the "jazzy, shameless self-promotion" it once offered.

Who's Mark Papermaster, the chip guru Apple and IBM are scrapping over? Here's one clue: He's the kind of guy who has no photos online. There used to be a "Mark Papermaster" profile on Facebook, but it's gone. No wonder he wants to disappear: Apple hired Papermaster, formerly a VP at IBM, possibly to run its PA Semi chip-design subsidiary. Apple switched to Intel chips for its Macs years ago, but after it bought PA Semi, speculation grew that it might use some variation on IBM's Power chips for the iPhone and iPod. Papermaster could help with that.IBM is suing Papermaster and Apple over the terms of his noncompete agreement. Apple and IBM hardly compete, which makes IBM's lawsuit a bit puzzling. California law is unfriendly, in general, to noncompete agreements; if anything comes of the lawsuit, it will likely be some kind of settlement. Here's why I think IBM is suing Apple and Papermaster: It just wants to get some idea of what Apple's up to.

A former Scientologist named Peter Letterese is suing Tom Cruise and his favorite religion for $265 million. According to Fishbowl LA, Letterese's charges include allegations that "Cruise and Scientology bribed and improperly influenced a federal judge, a Florida state judge and a federal bankruptcy trustee to tie up his original law suit in bankruptcy court." Those are serious charges, and there's no word of proof, so you might be excused for thinking Letterese is a wacko. Then again, there was that earlier incident when Scientologists tried to convince Letterese's wife that he was gay, allegedly: Back in July, Paul Barressi, a private investigator who works for Tom Cruise, gave the Daily News court papers of Letterese's allegations, including this: