Cordero first made the news when she alleged that Epstein told her he could help her get a "modeling" career and used her for sex when she was 16. Then the Post reported she was born a man! And that she had talked about "masturbatory" fantasies on Myspace! And then they ran off and got a dismissive quote about Cordero from Epstein's flack, Howard Rubensteing—who is also the Post's own flack! A fact which they did not disclose, which is shady as fuck.

So Cordero sued the paper for libel, and now, the judge has ruled. In favor of the Post! Basically the judge said that, yes, they reported that she had sexy fantasies, but not that she actually did the sexy things, and the average person wouldn't think she's a "promiscuous slut" (exact legal language!) just because she had dreams of getting triple-teamed. Hell, the judge himself has animal fantasies that would make you sick, but he's a straitlaced guy in real life. We made that up. But if you want to call somebody a slut in print, just make sure you call them a fantasy slut. Relevant portion of the ruling:

Plaintiff's libel cause of action is predicated on the theory that the October 23 article was libelous per se because the statement that "[o]n one [of the Myspace pages], [plaintiff] gives a graphic depiction of a masturbatory fantasy' she has of being with multiple men and then multiple women" implies that she is "a promiscuous slut." Obviously enough, plaintiff can only recover damages on her libel cause of action if she can establish that the article was in fact defamatory - "tend[ing] to expose [her] to public contempt, ridicule, aversion or disgrace, or induce an evil opinion of [her] in the minds of right-thinking persons, and to deprive [her] of their friendly intercourse in society" (Rinaldi, 42 NY2d at 379). The Post defendants argue that the statement does not have a defamatory meaning because the statement only reported that plaintiff had a sexual fantasy; it did not report that plaintiff actually engaged in sexual conduct with multiple men and multiple women or otherwise acted on the fantasy. For that reason, according to the Post defendants, the statement does not imply that plaintiff is promiscuous and therefore is not actionable. Plaintiff argues that the statement suggests that she is so perverted that she publishes an online diary of masturbatory fantasies of group sex and therefore implies that she is promiscuous. Thus, according to plaintiff, the statement is defamatory...

At bottom, plaintiff's claim of defamation rests on the contention that the average reader reasonably would infer that someone with such a lewd fantasy also is in fact sexually promiscuous. That some readers might draw this inference does not render it reasonable.

[via THR, Esq.]

California, whose real name is Fredrik Colting and who lives improbably in Sweden, wrote a book called 60 Years Later as an unauthorized sequel to Catcher in the Rye, featuring a very Caufield-esque 76-year-old who escapes from a nursing home and wanders the streets of Manhattan. Salinger sued to prevent its publication, claiming copyright, and a federal judge ruled yesterday that it's suffiently similar to Catcher that California/Colting can't publish it until the suit is finished, which could take years. The ruling will likely effectively kill the book.

But one of the reasons the judge cited for siding with Salinger sent a chill down our spine:

Both narratives are told from the first-person point of view of a sarcastic, often uncouth protagonist who relies heavily on slang, euphemisms and colloquialisms, makes constant digression and asides, refers to readers in the second person, constantly assures the reader that he is being honest and that he is giving them the truth.

Uh oh! Look you guys, this judge sounds like a real dope to us. A goddam dope. We've seen lots of blogs, some really swell ones, and they're alright. Don't go around listening to judges, cause they'll just mess your head up. It's just not fair. Now this writer fellow is going to come around waving some phony injunction at us. Don't ever blog about anything to anybody. If you do, some crazy agorophobic obsessive-compulsive old man with a taste for teenaged girls might come after you.

Update: You can read the whole complaint here.

We can't figure out what the point of this lawsuit is. Friedman has landed a new job, and it seems failrly clear that if his intent was to extract a settlement out of Fox, he would either have already done so with a threat to include embarrassing information in a lawsuit. That clearly didn't work, so now we should at least get a lawsuit that has explosive charges. All this one has is the interesting, but irrelevant, claim that the copy of Wolverine that leaked was Rupert Murdoch's own. Without anything even hinting at evidence.

Friedman, who says he made $250,000 per year, contends, among other things, that Fox broke his contract by terminating him after he reviewed a pirated copy of Wolverine:

For purposes of evaluating that claim, we'd imagine that the terms of the actual contract itself would be rather instructive. But the complaint, penned by the always-called-legendary lawyer Martin Garbus, doesn't even quote from the contract, or lay out what, precisely, it obligated Fox to do or not do relative to Friedman. Which doesn't bode well for a breach of contract claim, does it?

Essentially, Friedman claims that no one told him that his column was a really bad idea until after it went up on Fox News' web site. His friend, who's a lawyer for News Corp., didn't respond to an e-mail he sent her letting her know that he was doing it. And a copy editor said he liked the column!

Also, some random editor who had no authority over Friedman also seemed to like it:

So you can't fire him—no fair! The only relevant issue, it would seem to us, regarding the question of whether or not Fox could fire Friedman was what, precisely, their contract had to say on the matter. The rest, like Friedman's weird and completely irrelevant reference to Scientology—his editor, Refet Kaplan, suggested that a mean comment on Friedman's column was posted by a Scientologist—is pretty much static:

Friedman also makes much of his contention—for which he offers no evidence—that the leaked copy of Wolverine actually came from Rupert Murdoch's personal copy. (We looked into that claim a while back when we first heard it, and for what it's worth, Fox says Murdoch saw Wolverine at a screening room and never had a DVD.) But so what? Does it matter how the movie leaked? News Corp. fired him ostensibly because he wrote about a pirated movie, and they didn't like that. If that pirated movie came from Murdoch's stash, what of it?

Whatever the merits of Friedman's breach-of-contract claim—for which he wants $180,000, the remainder of his contract—his libel claim for $5 million is a joke. It consists, in its entirety, of the claim that by referring to what Friedman acknowledges having done—watching a prerelease copy of a movie online—as "piracy" in a statement, News Corp. libeled him.

We won't get into Friedman's "integrity and reputation" as a journalist, but if he thinks that by calling his viewing of an illegally pirated film "piracy"—even if Rupert Murdoch left it on a plane somewhere and that's how it got pirated—Fox has libeled him, he's crazy.

There are a million things wrong with News Corp. But they can fire whomever they like. Maybe Friedman's contract actually has terms that work in his favor in this instance. But if so, he might want to tell people about them.

That's damages for "wrongful termination, tortious interference and libel defamation." All, of course, stemming from the fact that Friedman wrote critical things of those wacky-yet-lovable Scientologists and Fox is in league with their most powerful members, so the whole "Hey you reviewed a film made by the studio you work for that you downloaded illegally so maybe you shouldn't have this job anymore" thing was just a red herring! A McGuffin meant to distract us from the wicked thetan-clearing hordes that control Hollywood.

Our question: If Friedman is claiming that money as any sort of lost earnings, how the hell much money was he making in the first place?

Update: The HuffPo, which first reported news of the suit, said Friedman "is expected" to bring up the Scientology allegations he made to the New York Daily News in his lawsuit. A source on Friedman's side of the litigation is mad at us because they say the suit filed today in New York Supreme Court doesn't mention Scientology. We asked his lawyer, Martin Garbus, to send over a copy of the complaint and will post an update when we get it.

Update 2: Garbus' office sent the complaint over and we discuss it here. (Yes, it does include the word "Scientology," but only once.)

At least, that's the way Musk is telling it:

Given that Daimler prides itself on integrity and conducted exhaustive due diligence, they would not have insisted that I remain CEO as a condition of the deal if Eberhard's attacks had merit.

Daimler's "cash infusion" (Musk's word) should be crucial to Musk's electric car company; just before the money came in we reported Tesla was running on fumes after nearly running out of cash last fall. So Musk will be awfully hard to oust if the Daimler deal really does lock him as CEO, if only because Tesla needs all the liquidity it can get.

Musk is said to have kept cash tight at PayPal to advance his control of the company; the Daimler clause accomplishes a similar goal at Tesla, albeit by different means. It would appear Musk is in the driver's seat, at least until another sugar daddy comes along.

An appeals court has awarded $2.1 million to two gallery owners who say they were duped into selling Kinkade's schlock, then double-crossed by the Godly master himself in a scheme designed to let Kinkade buy out his own company at a low price:

In its February 2006 decision, the arbitration panel said Kinkade and other company officials used terms like "partner," "trust," "Christian" and "God" to create "a certain religious environment designed to instill a special relationship of trust" with the couple.

What the company didn't tell them, said their attorney, was that they would have to sell Kinkade's works at minimum retail prices while the artist undercut them with discount sales, some of which he made himself on cable television.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.It was part of a plan, they claimed, to lower the value of the publicly traded company before Kinkade bought it in 2004, at steep losses to many investors.

Ruining the living rooms of half of the grandparents' houses in the Midwest wasn't enough for you, you monster?
[SF Chronicle via Unbeige]

The judge has put the new book—described as "An Unauthorized Fictional Examination of the Relationship Between J.D. Salinger and his Most Famous Character"—on hold for ten days until she issues a final ruling. But she seems sympathetic to Salinger:

"It does seem to me that Holden Caulfield is quite delineated by words, that is a portrait by words," Judge Batts told the lawyers, adding, "It would seem that Holden Caulfield is copyrighted." But the judge said she would take some time to reflect on whether the new book was sufficiently different from "The Catcher in the Rye" to fall under the protection of the fair use provision.

The knockoff book's author's pen name is "John David California" and it seems likely that his book will be derivative and may indeed suck a big one, but so what? Hard to believe Holden Caufield, of all fictional people, would go pleading for The Man to stop people from writing things. Salinger, stop being so phony.
[City Room, AP]

There's apparently two kinds of Tesla employees — current employees and former employees suing Tesla. Frankly, we're not surprised Eberhard's suing Musk and Tesla. We're more surprised that it took this long to happen especially given Musk's propensity for diarrhea-of-the-mouth types of comments. For the moment, the only thing we have to go off of is the PDF file from the California Superior Court — which you can see here.

In response, we're told Tesla plans to counter-sue Eberhard. That went over real well with Henrik Fisker — let's see how well it works here. All we know is we're just proud Eberhard quotes former-Valleywag Owen Thomas in his court filing. Gotta love the V-wag love! (Hat tip to Owen!)

Photo Credit: Yodel Anecdotal @ Flickr

Jane Collins became Frechen's assistant in 2002. Now she's suing him for $80 million:

While they were away at a conference in Plymouth, Mass., Frechen asked Collins to stop at his hotel room to help him with a speech, the suit says, and he tried to force himself on her.

The flustered Collins fled — but the undeterred Frechen asked her later that night if she'd meet him behind a gas station, an offer she declined, the suit says.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.A week later, he asked Collins to help him get his wife's car into a storage unit for the trip back to Germany — and when she did, he closed the warehouse door and forced himself on her, the suit says.

He denies the charges. The teddy bears remain silent thus far.
[NYP. Pics via and via]
The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

The Hollywood Reporter's THR, Esq. blog obtained a copy of a letter sent by Bruno production attorney Russell Smith to Richelle Olson's attorney. Here are a couple of the highlights:

Mr. Baron Cohen never touched Ms. Olson, much less assaulted her. To the contrary, Ms. Olson assaulted Mr. Baron Cohen, grabbing his arms from behind and attempting to pull him out of a chair.

Your clients also allege that Mr. Baron Cohen used 'vulgar and offensive language over the loud speakers of the bingo hall,' that 'the bingo players are predominantly elderly,' and that they 'felt violated.' ... The footage shows that most of the bingo players were relatively young (like the plaintiffs), and that Mr. Cohen offered only light-hearted comments that were met with general laughter from the audience, and even applause.

Obviously anticipating a slew of legal proceedings coming at them with the film's release, Bruno lawyers seem to be drawing a line in the sand and are daring potential litigants to cross it. We wonder how much the film has to gross to cover the cost of the legal team they're forced to employ to defend it?

THR, Esq. has a PDF of the complete letter if you're interested in those sort of things.

Bruno Attorneys Threaten Olson and Her Lawyers [THR, Esq.]

Richelle Olson claims that an incident at a Palmdale, California bingo tournament two years ago left her disabled in a wheelchair. She is seeking unspecified damages of at least $25,000.

Reports the AP:

Olson's lawsuit contends Cohen has 30 sham companies that help him pull off his ruses and that is how the comedian and his camera crew gained entry into the Desert Valley Charities' bingo tournament in May 2007.

Cohen was invited to the event because his handlers identified him as a "celebrity" who was filming a documentary on bingo, the suit states. The event was to raise money for nursing students.

According to the lawsuit, Cohen - in character as Bruno - started using vulgarities while calling the second bingo game in front of a mostly elderly audience.

A struggle ensued after Olson tried to grab the microphone away from Cohen. She claims he then called his camera crew over, who attacked her for at least a minute, hoping to "create a dramatic emotional response."

Olson's suit states she ran from the stage and was found moments later by a co-worker, sobbing uncontrollably. She then fell to the floor, hitting her head on a concrete slab.

The suit states she suffered brain bleeding as a result.

We would hope that if this lady genuinely suffered brain bleeding that left her in a wheelchair that she's a asking for much more than $25,000 in damages, but why she waited two years to file the suit is anyone's guess—-Some would say probably because it's all a bunch of BS.

Woman Sues Comedian Over Bruno Skirmish [Google/AP]

60 Years Later, by a mysterious guy living in Sweden (!) named John David California, imagines Holden Caufield as a 76-year-old escapee from a retirement home wandering the streets of New York City. Salinger's lawyers argue that "the sequel is not a parody and it does not comment upon or criticise the original. It is a ripoff pure and simple."

The suit also wonders just who the hell this California fellow is:

The lawsuit presented California as a mysterious, unsavory character, of uncertain name and location. "His precise whereabouts are unknown, despite due investigation," according to the court papers.

California—who is apparently an American—told the Telegraph that he writes under a pen name and lives near Goteborg, Sweden. He didn't reveal his identity to the paper, and said he's a Salinger fan: "I didn't mean to cause him any trouble."

Salinger's suit is similar to the efforts on the part of Margaret Mitchell's estate to block the publication of The Wind Done Gone, a reimagining of Gone With the Wind from the perspective of a slave on Scarlett O'Hara's plantation, in 2001. In that case, the estate failed to get an injunction against publication, but an appeals court decision was sympathetic enough to Mitchell's argument to convince the publisher to settle with a substantial payment.

John David California (pictured at right) seems like an awful, awful person and it sounds like and awful, awful book, but we hope Salinger doesn't succeed. We like parody. Salinger has previously sued to prevent a magazine writer from shopping around a fake interview with him and to stop an unauthorized biographer from publishing his letters, which he claimed copyright over.

Norm Coleman lost his reelection to the US Senate to cocaine-addled New York comedian Al Franken, the famous star of LateLine. It was a very close race, and after the legally-mandated recount, Franken led Coleman by only 312 votes. So Norm took him to court! And lost! So he appealed! And he will lose, again! And in the meantime, Minnesota has only one lonely Senator, and the Democrats are missing their magical 60th vote that will solve all our problems. So the RNC is paying Norm to prolong the inevitable as long as possible, even as it destroys his own political career (a majority of Minnesotans currently wish Norm would just go away).

Should the Minnesota Supreme Court rule against Norm (which will probably happen some time around Independence Day), he could still appeal to the US Supreme Court! If he does this, Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty will have to sacrifice either his Gubernatorial reelection by not signing Franken's election certificate or wreck his future in the national GOP by giving the seat to the Democrat.

Here is a fun fact about the Minnesota State Supreme Court: one of the justices is former Vikings DT and NFL hall-of-famer Alan Page! Page's 148.5 career sacks reassure us that the court will decide fairly. We just wish they'd hurry up about it.

Brent Walth wrote about Breedlove for The Oregonian in January, but now Breedlove says it's gone too far:

In his petition [for a restraining order], filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court, Breedlove characterized the contacts as threatening, alleging that Walth said he would publish damaging information about Breedlove unless he agreed to an interview.

The paper calls the allegations "absurd." Just be glad you didn't have a hot gay fling with a politico on New York City, Beau, because, whoa!
[Oregonian]

Greenspan's suit argues he originated the company's name and that the company's trademark is thus invalid. It's been in court for six months. The company has resolved the case just as it prepares to buy out employees antsy to cash out their shares and as it raises new funding to provide a "buffer" against the economy.

It's especially nice to resolve those sorts of problems if you're going to IPO, as Business Insider notes. And while we're not questioning founder Mark Zuckerberg's sincerity when he says the company won't go public for several years, at this rate we wouldn't be surprised if it happened sooner.

(Pic via Think Computer)

Dov Charney and Co.'s entire strategy for this trial was to say, hey, Woody Allen didn't lose $10 million being associated with our pervy brand, because he was already a perv. Then they posed and postured like they were going to turn the trial into a parade of Woody's Greatest Perv Hits, making it so painful for him that he'd wish he never sued them.

That was a bluff. Everybody knows Woody Allen's shit already. So they paid him half. Fair is fair. But where's your scrappy sense of tabloid sensationalism, Dov? We all knew you'd lose, but now you also lost a shitload of free PR. And who's going to pay Woody for this?

UPDATE: Full statement from Dov Charney here. Including, heh:

In his deposition, Mr. Allen said that he had never heard of American Apparel or me prior to the billboard. I believe that if Mr. Allen became more familiar with the company, he might appreciate some aspects of American Apparel specifically our commitment to creativity.

Trump's "testimony" came in a December 2007 deposition for his lawsuit against Tim O'Brien, who wrote a book saying Trump was worth far, far less than a billion dollars. Trump's response was to sue him for hundreds of millions of dollars so that he sure would have a billion after he won, yea! But seriously, Donald Trump just makes up everything he says about his own wealth:

"My net worth fluctuates, and it goes up and down with markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feeling."

Financial projections are an emotional business! And these emotions are worth billions:

Mr. Trump said that his 2007 estimate of his net worth — over $4 billion — is "a very conservative number, in my opinion." He also said $6 billion is a good number, counting his brand value. (In the interview Sunday, he said he was worth $5 billion, not counting brand value.)

Hahahaha. Ha ha. Fun fact: Many established banks have lent this man money. What's your secret, Donald?

In the deposition, Mr. Trump is asked about the Bedminster, N.J. golf course, which financial statements showed had a net loss of $4.6 million in 2005. Has he ever done a financial analysis of his investment there?

"Yes, I've done mental projections," he said, figuring he'd eventually make $120 million. He never put them down on paper. "You don't really have to," he said.

[WSJ; Pic via]

The morosely moribund newspaper industry is looking for a bailout. The government and Google are the only people with cash on hand these days; even superstar investor Warren Buffett, who owns stakes in the Post and the Buffalo News, says he won't put more money into the business.

A government handout to watchdog institutions is unseemly, so the papers are understandably targeting Google. Howard Kurtz reports in the Post that his employer is talking to Google about "improved ways of creating and presenting news online." Timesblogger Brian Stelter has Twittered that his bosses are doing the same.

Oh, so the newspapers want preening, self-important executives like Google VP Marissa Mayer to boss around their Web designers the way they do underlings at the Googleplex? Unlikely. They want cash, and soon.

It's sad that their writers are resorting to tactics they accuse bloggers of, like inventing facts out of whole cloth to serve their arguments. Take Times columnist Frank Rich, who insulted every non-newspaper journalist on the planet with this fabrication:

Just because information wants to be free on the Internet doesn't mean it can always be free. Web advertising will never be profitable enough to support ambitious news gathering. If a public that thinks nothing of spending money on texting or pornography doesn't foot the bill for such reportage, it won't happen.

Tell that to to CNET News, the tech news site which has won awards for its reporting. Or the citizen journalists of the Huffington Post, whose scoops shaped the last election. Or the experienced ink-stained wretches of Politico, some of whom worked not long ago at the Times and the Post. For that matter, the implication that journalism only happens when readers pay is nonsense. Look no further than the decades-old traditions of deep, original reporting found on radio and TV institutions like NPR and 60 Minutes, whose broadcasts come absolutely free of charge.

Kurtz, too, indulges in the occasional unreported fiction posing as fact:

Hanging over the talks is the reality that the search giant, while funneling vital traffic to news sites, vacuums up their content without paying a dime.

This "reality" is more of a collective delusion shared only by the newsrooms of America.

Then there are straight-out guilt trips: If Google doesn't pay for journalism, who will?

None of these tactics — begging, propaganda, guilt — seem to be working. That's because Googlers are smart, and they see that the newspapers have absolutely no leverage. We have a simple proposal for the executives of the Post and Times: Sue Google.

If they believe in their arguments, that Google is doing something improper with their content outside the bounds of fair use, then they should make their case in a court of law. Yes, they'll get brickbats from the blogosphere, but they're already losing in the court of opinion. And until there's a threat hanging over Google's head, there's absolutely no reason for them to open up their pocketbook.

It's a risky course. Google might respond with an alternative proposal: Instead of paying for the newspapers' headlines, why doesn't it charge them for the traffic it sends to their websites? There's ample precedent.

Larry Kramer, the newspaper executive who founded MarketWatch and now works as a venture capitalist, once told me a story about his company's dealings with Yahoo Finance. The stocks website was sending MarketWatch tons of free Web traffic through links on its site. MarketWatch executives were thrilled. But as it readied itself to go public, MarketWatch's investment bankers got nervous. What if Yahoo pulled the plug on the links? MarketWatch ended up signing a contract to pay Yahoo, in exchange for a guarantee.

Google has long resisted such pay-for-play links in its search results, segregating out commercial links as clearly marked ads. But the newspapers' whiny intransigence might test its morals. We'd like to see both sides put their money where their mouth is, and act to back up their stances — the newspapers, that content is worth paying for, and Google, that links have value. Better than this namby-pamby talk of talks.

As first reported by the Abbeville Meridional...

According to the lawsuit, Rebecca (White) was in the grocery aisle shopping on Oct. 11, 2008. Her basket was full of food when suddenly and without warning, a large nutria came from behind the Coke rack and ran straight towards Rebecca, the lawsuit said.

Rebecca, fearing for her safety, pulled the shopping cart towards her to protect her from the nutria and as she did, the cart rolled over her left foot causing her to stumble and causing her to suffer an injury.
Wal-Mart's employees came to assist her and told Rebecca that, "she had an encounter with Norman" a name the employees had given the nutria, the lawsuit stated.

A more recent story by the ABA details the extent of Rebecca White's injuries...

Fearful of her safety from what appeared to be a large rat, White says she yanked her shopping cart back and ran over her own foot, breaking several bones and damaging nerves. The injuries required surgery.

Now, I couldn't let this first night doing Gawker late nights go by without posting this story. The nutria have been a nuisance in for years back home in Louisiana, and now they've even migrated up to Jersey and are causing all sorts of panic there as well. These nutria must be stopped, dammit! Do something Obama!

Things got so bad a few years ago that the state of Louisiana set aside money in its budget for nutria culinary research, hoping that the invention of some dish, Blackened Nutria perhaps, would spark a demand for nutria meat, thus helping the state end its chronic nutria overpopulation problem, as this New York Times story from 1997 details. That effort failed. Miserably. And yes, I have tasted nutria, and no, it doesn't taste like chicken, so there. And this hilarious "How to Cook a Nutria" instructional video was a small part of that terribly misguided governmental effort. Enjoy.

Nutria photo via Red Star's Flickr.

Well, maybe "a couple years" worth of gay porn films. See, Grove City College is a Christian college out in Amish country or something, and school officials say Gechtner should've known that gay porn "exhibited behavior contrary to the values" of Grove City College.

And he probably should've know that! This is a school so strict that our former Valleywag Nick Douglas was once suspended for drinking a beer! They suspend for unfilmed heterosexual sex!

But, you know, this kid's taking his story to the ACLU, so there should be some terribly exciting lawsuits on the way!

This is the real outrage, though:

Twenty-two-year-old John Gechter, of Philadelphia, was suspended for one year pending appeal from Grove City College after a student saw him last month in a video posted online.

Oh, really? Has this other student been suspended? Whoops, I just spotted a classmate in some gay porn I accidentally watched online!

Hey, there are NSFW photos of our friend Vincent at Fleshbot. V v NSFW photos.

Lavandeira has won a case against PerezRevenge, a gossip site which styles itself as an antidote to Hilton's "meanness." U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feess has ordered the blog's owners, Margie Rogers and Elizabeth Silver-Fagan, to stop using the PerezRevenge name, turn over the site to Hilton, and desist from "using the term 'Perez' to designate any platform, medium, and/or website that contains entertainment or celebrity news or gossip."

Which is laughable, when you think about how Hilton got his start. He first blogged on a site called PageSixSixSix, until he got a nastygram from the New York Post, which objected to his free-riding on the name of its famous gossip column. Lavandeira then came up with his play on the name of the famous hotel heiress, and became Perez Hilton. He also routinely doctors celebrity photos, arguing that sprinkling cocaine dots on them is a transformative use, entitling him to publish them. A couple years ago, several photo agencies disagreed and slapped him with lawsuits. Still, it's all fun and fair. It seems like he's just upset that someone else has joined in on the game.

Bennett's complaint claims that he is owed royalties from songs he recorded and co-wrote during his seven years with the band, as well as for proceeds from the documentary, which Bennett says Tweedy co-produced. The suit indicates that Bennett tried repeatedly to collect from Tweedy, who paid out only "infrequent partial payments."

This is sad. Bennett was an important part of the development of Wilco's sound—the elaborate Beach Boys orchestration on Summerteeth was in large part Bennett's vision, as was much of the noise experimentation on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Tweedy kicked out drummer Ken Coomer without so much as a phone call—that was left to manager Tony Margherita—and he likewise booted Bennett when their passive-aggressive co-dependent relationship, documented in excruciating detail on I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, became too much to bear.

Since that parting, Bennett has struggled with drug addiction and anonymity, while Tweedy has struggled with drug addiction and critical adulation.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times's Jim DeRogatis, the suit, which comes eight years after Bennett left the band, may have been motivated by Bennett's need for imminent hip surgery. He doesn't have health insurance.

According to this blog, Coomer also sued Tweedy after he was booted, and Bennett has hired the lawyer who handled that case. The phone number for that attorney listed on Cook County Circuit Court documents filed yesterday is currently disconnected, which doesn't bode well for Bennett.

Update: Via Paste, the publicist for Tweedy has issued a statement:

I know exactly as much as everyone else does. I've read the news and I honestly have no idea what these claims are based on. It was such a long time ago. Aside from everything else, I'm being sued for not paying someone for appearing in a movie I didn't produce. Go figure. I am truly sad it has come to this. I am equally convinced, however, that I have done nothing wrong and that this will be handled fairly and swiftly.

Joseph Maioriello of Schenectady was fired from his cushy $34k-a-year gig as "State Senate photographer" when Paterson replaced a white guy as minority leader. He was replaced with a black guy. So he sued for $1.5 million!

He did not get that much money, in the settlement. Also there is still no such thing as "reverse discrimination."

Everyone in the world hates David Paterson more than even the swine flu, but we still kinda like him, because of things like this:

Paterson, who is legally blind, claimed in a sworn deposition that he didn't see well enough to have fired Maioriello because of his race.

A spokesman for Paterson later said the comment was "a quip, a joke."

Hah, he used a Colbert joke in a sworn deposition. This fuckin' governor!

Natalie Cedeno, FriendFinder's former director of human resources, was fired in January without cause, she says, after a series of run-ins with management over practices she believed were improper or illegal.

Cedeno claims the atmosphere at the company changed substantially after Penthouse Media Group acquired Various Inc., the operator of Adult FriendFinder and other websites, in 2007 and changed its name to FriendFinder Networks. Various was buttoned-up, she says, despite operating websites where users planned hookups. Penthouse, by comparison, was pure frat-boy raunch — an attitude which culminated in an incident where a Penthouse Pet draped her boobs on an unwilling female employee in a staged photo meant to humiliate her.

There's more. The complete lawsuit is included below, but here are the highlights — or lowlights:

25. In or about April, 2008 plaintiff received complaints regarding racist comments concerning employees and prospective employees being made by the company's Controller, Al Mercado. Mercado made racially disparaging comments regarding Indians, Asians and people whose spoke English as their second language, which he admitted to Plaintiff. Plaintiff met with and counseled Mr. Mercado on three separate occasions, yet his discriminatory conduct continued. The complaints regarding Mr. Mercado's racially disparaging comments were received from Accounting Supervisor, Brinda Calori who had asked to be given a new assignment because she was distressed by Mercado's conduct. Plaintiff went to Carmela Monti and recommended that Mercado be discharged. Monti refused to terminate Mercado and instead ordered that Ms. Calori be terminated. Plaintiff objected to Monti's decision to terminate Ms. Calori and complained to the Vice-President of Finance who refused to become involved. Plaintiff is informed and believes and thereon alleges that Ms. Calori has filed a complaint with the EEOC for retaliatory discharge resulting from her complaints.

28. In May 2008 FriendFinder brought two Penthouse Pets and a male model into the Sunnyvale office to serve ice cream to the employees. The Pets were dressed in revealing attire that caused a female supervisor to complain that their presence and the fact that they were "porn stars" made her so uncomfortable that she would stay in her office away from this activity. The Pets went up to the supervisor's office and one of them placed her breasts on the employees head while two other employees' took pictures. The supervisor came to Plaintiff's office in tears. She was visibly shaken and upset and informed Plaintiff that she was afraid the photos would be put on the Internet. Plaintiff had previously telephoned Carmela Monti, informed her that the Pets were pinching the nipples of the male employees, rubbing their bare chest and inappropriately touching staff, and asked that Monti allow her to have the Pets removed from the office. Monti had refused Plaintiff's request and after the incident involving the supervisor Plaintiff called Monti again, asking that the Pets be removed because their behavior violated the company's sexual harassment policy. Monti again refused Plaintiff's request that she be authorized to direct the Pets to leave the office. COO Tony Previte appeared supported Monti's decision, stating that the employee who complained was a "trouble maker."

39. In or about August or September, 2008, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the Las Vegas office, Jason Rasberry, made inappropriate sexual comments concerning a female employee (TE). The CTO said to 5-6 male coworkers in the presence of TE (the group was standing together on a smoke break) "I've had seen TE naked and her breasts are too small." The CTO admitted having made the comment. The CTO had a history of previous misconduct in the workplace for which he had received disciplinary action. Prior to this incident the CTO had asked a male applicant who was interviewing for a position in the company's Technology Department to "chose any item and he would have one of the girls on cams.com insert it into her vagina."

FriendFinder appears to be facing severe financial trouble. The company filed for a $460 million public stock offering in December, in an effort to pay off more than $400 million in debt incurred during the Penthouse acquisition. That IPO has yet to happen. But the stock market remains unfriendly to IPOs, and FriendFinder has defaulted on some of its debt, according to a new SEC financing. A tipster tells us the company recently laid off eight marketing staffers in an effort to cut costs. And top executives seem to disagree on whether the company can afford to keep publishing the print edition of Penthouse. (FriendFinder's corporate website now softpedals the company's porn business, highlighting G-rated social networks like BigChurch.com instead.)

Cedeno v. FriendFinder - Get more Legal Forms

LV's little "boutique" next to the Murakami exhibit in LA sold handbags and limited edition prints and such. But now a guy is suing LV, because he found out that his $6,000 print was—wait for it—leftover handbag fabric, that was just stretched on a frame and mounted.

The point of installing a boutique inside the "Copyright Murakami" exhibition at MOCA's Geffen Contemporary building was to highlight the Japanese pop artist's trademark blurring of the lines between art and commerce, MOCA officials said at the time of the 2007-08 show. But Arthur contends that selling repurposed handbag material as 500 collectible art prints priced at $6,000 and $10,000 crossed the line from commerce to fraud because Louis Vuitton allegedly hid the fact that the prints were made from the same fabric sheets as the Murakami-designed bags and accessories selling nearby for almost $1,000.

Bwahahaha. Here's the line between art and commerce: Art is ripping you off ten times more! This whole "Art as luxury materialism" embrace is just blech, so no tears for any asshole who dropped 10K on LV fabric laid out in a frame. Let's pretend this was all an object lesson in the perils of luxury fixation.
And that shit is ugly.
[LAT. Pic via]

Jared Diamond wrote a big ole article last year the the New Yorker about how dudes in a certain New Guinea tribe spend most of their time running around and warring and having blood feuds and, yes, stealing swine. Oh Jared Diamond, did you think that New Guinea tribesmen don't have New York lawyers?

A two-page complaint filed in New York State Supreme Court on April 20 seeks $10 million from the New Yorker's publisher, Advance Publications, claiming Diamond's story falsely accused Wemp and fellow tribesman Isum Mandigo of "serious criminal activity" and "murder."

Bonus actual quote from the plaintiff's legal adviser: "He has never killed anyone or raped a woman. He certainly has never stolen a pig." Pig-stealing in New Guinea is like corpse-fucking in New Jersey.
[Forbes]

WPP, the advertising conglomerate, is suing Grouf and Spot Runner's other board members, charging them with a massive scheme to enrich themselves to the tune of $54 million while the online-advertising startup bled $80 million in losses. WPP is seeking $13 million in damages. (The lawsuit is embedded below.)

So many people believed Spot Runner's story — a startup ostensibly dedicated to simplifying the process of buying television ads, a challenge Grouf experienced firsthand while working on John Kerry's failed presidential campaign in 2004. Media giants from WPP to Grupo Televisa to CBS invested more than $100 million in the company — some of which WPP charges went into Grouf's pockets instead of into the company's coffers. Bob Pittman, a Spot Runner board member, is also accused of selling his shares, as are Battery Partners and Index Ventures. Spot Runner claims WPP just wants to get back its investment in a declining ad market.

Everyone loves an upstart. In 2006, as it raised its first round of venture capital, Spot Runner cast itself early on as the David against Google's Goliath as the search engine was starting to dabble in brokering television commercials.

Grouf told a gullible Kara Swisher last summer that the company was "scrappy," bragging about the low rent it paid on its headquarters on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. But the company lurched from business plan to business plan — first hiring dozens of video producers to churn out cookie-cutter TV ads, then buying a search-advertising startup, then switching from selling TV ads to small businesses to wooing national advertisers. Executives came and went, and the company laid off hundreds in waves starting last fall.

John Gentry, the company's president, blamed the economy, telling Fortune Small Business that "everyone's hard hit." But the WPP lawsuit has revealed the economy excuse as an obvious lie. Spot Runner took in $5 million in revenues in 2007 and lost $35 million. 2008 was hardly an improvement: The company took in $9 million and lost $45 million. (Spokeswoman Rosabel Tao would not comment specifically on those figures, saying that WPP's filing had "inaccuracies.") At those figures, Spot Runner didn't have anything resembling a real business, let alone one that would wax or wane with the swings of the economy.

WPP alleges that Spot Runner's executives and board members, including some of its early venture-capital backers, sold shares to new investors, pocketing the proceeds rather than putting the money in the company's treasury.

Spot Runner is now betting the company on something called Project Malibu, a digital system for buying television ads. Wait a second: Wasn't that the initial idea, to use technology to make buying TV ads easier? The fantasy of perfectly liquid markets has long entranced entrepreneurs, who can't understand why all business processes aren't as efficient as the equations they studied in college. But it's hard to imagine a business less efficient than one which loses $5 for every $1 it makes.

The picture painted by WPP charges are of a market that functioned very efficiently for Grouf and his pals. Too bad it didn't have anything to do with advertising.

Lauder's lawyers say that Stein and her lawyer, Edward Hayes, broke a confidentiality agreement that was supposed to prevent his mother, Evelyn, from ever learning he had an affair that led to a baby girl named Djuna. "This is exactly what Mr. Lauder didn't want to happen," his lawyer said in court yesterday. "He did not want to look his mother in her face and say 'Sorry.' "

Hayes contends that it's not mom that the confidentiality was designed to protect, but rather William's wife Karen. He claims Karen's friends were the ones who leaked word of Djuna to the press — and that she's the one to blame for the court case, having allegedly told Lauder that she would divorce him and prevent him from seeing their two daughters if he continued his efforts to visit Djuna and Stein.

In an email, Hayes says he only expressed one regret about his remarks:

I did say that I should not have said that I have more respect for some of the contract killers I have represented [than I have for] Karen for forcing William to do this. At least one contract killer I am fond of took offense that I would even discuss in the same sentence someone like himself who works for what he has, does not injure innocent people, and would certainly not be dissuaded from seeing his children by threats of money, with a wife who told her husband that she would ruin him financially and his relationship with his other children if he saw his daughter by another woman. (He also said, "I would kill any motherfucker that told me I could not see my daughter" — but I thought that better left unsaid.)

We're not sure what the lesson is here, except that having a baby mama seems expensive and hitmen sure are touchy these days.

(Photo by New York Social Diary)

The Yankees started playing "God Bless America" over the loudspeakers during the seventh-inning stretch shortly after 9/11. At a game last August, Bradford Campeau-Laurion attempted to use the seventh-inning stretch for the reason God intended it—to take a leak. But two New York City police officers—the NYCLU believes they were off-duty and working security for the stadium—tried to bodily prevent him from leaving his seat because everybody knows that relieving oneself while patriotic music is playing is a grave offense to the freedoms we all hold dear. From the NYCLU press release:

Campeau-Laurion quietly watched the game, ate a bag of peanuts and drank two beers. He decided to use the restroom at the start of the seventh-inning stretch – a period when fans often choose to use the restroom. He got up and made his way down the aisle as "God Bless America" began playing. A police officer blocked his path and indicated that he could not leave during the song. Campeau-Laurion explained that he needed to use the restroom and was not concerned about "God Bless America." Then he attempted to walk past the officer.

Before Campeau-Laurion could take a step, the police officer grabbed his right arm and twisted it behind his back. A second officer twisted Campeau-Laurion's left arm behind his back, and the two officers then marched him down several ramps to the stadium's exit with his arms pinned behind his back. The officers refused to ease their grip, even though Campeau-Laurion was not resisting them.

The encounter ended with one of the officers telling Campeau-Laurion to leave the country if he didn't like it.

If you ever go to the bathroom on the Fourth of July in New York City, expect a beatdown from the NYPD.

Campeau-Laurion, who works for Forbes.com (according to his Plaxo profile), is suing the NYPD, the Yankees, and the City of New York.

Hunter at Fishbowl NY did some *actual reporting* on this story, and he seems to confirm the basics:

• Kiki Paris was the magazine's director of national accounts, responsible for bringing in major advertisers, and was widely credited as a star on the staff, with glowing performance reviews.
• She got hit by a car and broke her spine. She had surgery and "placed in a halo neckbrace for 12 weeks." The company started urging her to work from home. She did, after seven weeks, against her doctor's advice.
• Then company HR people came to her home and stone cold fired her! "Paris says when she asked why she was being laid off Bruce told her 'I can only say it's corporate restructuring.'"
• Now she is suing their asses.

Woody wants $10 million because American Apparel ripped off his visage for a billboard. People will think he's a perv, like Dov! American Apparel responds: you're not worth $10 million. You're a perv!

"We believe that Mr. Allen's popularity has decreased significantly, especially in light of the scandals he's been associated with," American Apparel lawyer Stuart Slotnick told The Post...

"The term 'sex scandal' shall mean . . . your relationship with Soon-Yi Previn including the discovery and public reports thereof, the nude pictures you took of Soon-Yi Previn, and your marriage to Soon-Yi Previn," Charney's lawyers wrote.

A huge portion of his adult life is defined as a "sex scandal." Just like Dov! American Apparel is right in noting that there's no way Woody Allen could get $10 million for his endorsement from anyone. He'd endorse, what...Viagra? Glasses? It's not happening. His name has been far less prominent lately even in the ads for his own movies. It's a shame that Dov and Woody, two soul brothers, have to be fighting like this. Can't they just kiss and make out? [NYP]

....Which is not something you'd find out by reading the NYT's story on the matter. It does a great job explaining how Andrew Cuomo just filed a civil suit against Merkin alleging "fraud and deception," for collecting $470 million in fees just for handing billions over to Madoff. But it doesn't say anything about Daphne Merkin, J. Ezra's sister, who's a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine. And who wrote a piece on Madoff with a grossly inadequate disclosure just last month!

When Daphne wrote her breezy op-ed about how Madoff's victims aren't really victims, the totality of her disclosure was a parenthetical statement that "I did not know Mr. Madoff nor did I invest with his firm, but have a sibling who did business with him." That pissed off lots of people, including the Times' public editor. But since then, the paper has not appended any more disclosure to the piece, nor have they run any sort of correction, apparently. Here are the three most recent Merkin-related corrections from the NYT:

February 21, 2009 Saturday
Late Edition - Final
CORRECTIONS

An article last Saturday about an adviser to the money manager J. Ezra Merkin, who invested $2 billion of his clients' money with Bernard L. Madoff, overstated action taken by the Securities and Exchange Commission in the early 1990s against the adviser. Although the adviser, Victor Teicher, who provided investment advice to Mr. Merkin while Mr. Teicher was in prison for securities fraud, was barred by the S.E.C. from providing investment advice to registered securities advisers, he was not barred from advising unregistered advisers like Mr. Merkin.

The article also may have left the incorrect impression that Mr. Teicher was required to disclose his arrangement with Mr. Merkin in two unsuccessful applications to the S.E.C. in 2007 and 2008 in his effort to re-enter the securities business. The terms of his agreement with the S.E.C. did not require such a disclosure.

January 17, 2009 Saturday
Late Edition - Final
CORRECTION

An article on Friday about J. Ezra Merkin, a New York financier under investigation in the Bernard Madoff fraud,
Enhanced Coverage Linking
Madoff fraud, misstated the losses of Bard College, whose money Mr. Merkin invested with Mr. Madoff. It lost $3 million of its $11 million investment, not the entire investment. The article also referred incorrectly to the role of the late Leon Levy in Mr. Merkin's appointment to the board of the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College. While Mr. Levy introduced Mr. Merkin to Bard officials, he did not recommend him for the board.

December 18, 2008 Thursday
Late Edition - Final
CORRECTIONS

Because of an editing error, an article on Tuesday about the effect on several charities of a fraud involving a Wall Street investment fund run by Bernard L. Madoff misidentified an investment concern that worked with Mr. Madoff's fund on behalf of the SAR Academy, a Jewish school in the Bronx. It is Ascot Partners, an investment fund operated by J. Ezra Merkin — not the Ascot Fund, which is a charity affiliated with the National Alopecia Areata Foundation.

Also because of an editing error, the article misstated the effect of the closing of the JEHT Foundation, whose money was invested in Mr. Madoff's fund, on the Center for Investigative Reporting. The center has received significant grants over the years from the foundation and its budget this year includes money from previous JEHT grants, but the center is not ''losing revenue.''

Nitpicky! But not when it comes to his sister. So anyhow, J. Ezra Merkin has been sued by the AG for his Madoff-related activities, and his sister writes for the New York Times, sometimes about Madoff-related activities, but their relationship is not worth discussing much.

ShamWow pitchman Vince Shlomi, who was arrested last month because a hooker who allegedly bit him on the tongue and he pummeled the shit out of her, became a Scientologist in 1982. According to his 2004 lawsuit against the cult (read the full lawsuit here), the Scientology was part of a conspiracy to steal his successful food-chopper business from him.

In the early 1990s, Shlomi started a business selling something called "the Chopper," which appears to be a precursor to the Slap Chop of "you're gonna love my nuts fame," which he has more recently been selling in infomercials. According to the suit, he was making more than $1 million a year by setting up demonstrations in malls and using his preternatural pitchman skills to sell the Chopper. Sounds high, but we'll believe it!

As the Chopper business flourished, Shlomi started bringing his coreligionists on board, teaching them how to hypnotically captivate mall-goers and sell them useless kitchen crap. He cut his Scientology salesmen—including two colleagues named Ron Chacon and Steve Harris—in to the tune of $1.50 for each Chopper sold. All told, Shlomi was employing more than 40 Scientologists in the enterprise.

In the late '90s, Shlomi decided to pour the profits from the Chopper business into his movie, The Underground Comedy Movie. But his Scientologist employees grew jealous of his business success and his his Hollywood ambitions, and concocted a smear campaign against Shlomi and the movie, which the cult decried as "bad art" (which, let's face it, it was).

Around the same time, Shlomi turned over day-to-day operations of the Chopper to Chacon and Harris, who allegedly promised to keep paying Shlomi $1.15 for every Chopper they sold. Shlomi claims they sold 1 million (again, sounds high!). But according to the complaint, Chacon and Harris pocketed all the money and stole the business.

Ever the good Scientologist, Shlomi tried to use the cult's endless labrynth of beaureaucratic procedures—rather than a regular court—to get his money and business back from Harris and Chacon. In response, the complaint says, Harris and Chacon launched a cult-approved "black propaganda campaign" against Shlomi.

That campaign resulted, the complaint says, in Shlomi being hauled up before a Scientology court, which heard unspecified evidence from 22 people and branded him a criminal. Shlomi never heard the specific charges. When he appealed, he was labeled a "Type B declare," Scientology-speak for "criminals with proven criminal records." But Shlomi still believed in Scientology's tenets, and went round and round for years trying to clear his name. Eventually he was allowed back into the cult's good graces, but he got the run-around when he tried to use Scientology procedures to get his money and business back from Chacon and Harris. He kept at it until 2002, when he learned from a friend that the church had allegedly forced witnesses to denounced him in the kangaroo court. It was, Shlomi decided, a concerted effort to strip him of his business.

The suit was dismissed four months after it was filed. Shlomi left the church and started pitching ShamWows and Slap Chops on TV, got famous, and beat up a hooker. And that's the story of how the phrase "you're gonna love my nuts" started out with a Scientology front. Read the whole thing here.