Scanner : trials

Racist Small Town Hoodlums Getting Away with Murder

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:10:00 GMT

Brandon Piekarsky entering court before his acquittal on third-degree murder charges. Piekarsky's level of involvement in the killing is unclear, as he wasn't believed to have helped in the beating.

On July 12th, in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania, a group of white teenagers were walking home when they came across a young Hispanic man in the park with a teenage girl. One of them yelled out, "Isn't it a little late for you to be out? Get your Mexican boyfriend out of here."

The Mexican man, whose name was Luis Ramirez, became enraged and screamed back at them and began calling for backup. Eighteen-year-old Brian Scully then traded punches with Ramirez, with no one ever agreeing on how the fight actually got started. Derrick Donchak, then 19, jumped on top of the badly-beaten Ramirez and, with a piece of metal between his knuckles, began pummeling Ramirez's face. Miraculously, Ramirez was able to recover and the boys ran off, hurling more racial slurs back as they ran. This enraged Ramirez, who chased after them until a quick blow to the head from Colin Walsh, a 17-year-old component of the all-white group, wiped him out. While Ramirez was down, Scully (it is said by witnesses) kicked Ramirez in the head, causing him to foam at the mouth and convulse. He died as a result of that brutal blow.

At the boys' trial, no one seemed to dispute these facts (except which boy did what.) Nonetheless, the jury acquitted the accused of third degree murder and various other charges while convicting them of simple assault. The defendants and their families emerged from the courtroom triumphant, while legal observers say this was on obvious miscarriage of justice:

"There's been a complete failure of justice," said Gladys Limon, staff attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, who attended the trial and informed Ramirez's family of the verdict. "It's just outrageous and very difficult to understand how any juror could have had reasonable doubt."

She said the evidence "clearly established that Luis Ramirez was brutally beaten."

Prosecutors cast Ramirez as the victim of a gang of drunken white teens motivated by a dislike of their small coal town's burgeoning Hispanic population. But the jury evidently sided with defense attorneys, who called Ramirez the aggressor and characterized the brawl as a street fight that ended tragically. [New York Daily News]
As Avery Friedman argues persuasively in the video from CNN yesterday, this was a pretty clear-cut case of jury nullification: the weight of evidence against the accused was so powerful that it's clear the all-white jury -- like similar juries in the South during the Civil Rights struggle -- was not going to convict two young white men of murdering a Mexican. Even if, as Friedman says, "the only reason he is dead is because he was Mexican." [Crooks and Liars]

Now, some activists are putting pressure on the state's Democratic Governor, Ed Rendell, to speak out about the hate crime. They believe the worst is still to come from a town that is almost 100% Caucasian and only 1% Hispanic...

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Iowa Politician Swears He Ordered the Massage Without the Happy Ending

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 08 May 2009 19:54:00 GMT

A City Councilman in Council Bluffs, Iowa, is on trial this week after ordering up a "sensual massage" via Craigslist. It turned out the masseuse was a police informant and the cops raided the hotel room before the happy ending.

But check out the excuses Darren Bates offered on the stand yesterday: they're only making his situation more comical...

"If I’m getting a massage I’d rather it be a pretty woman rather than a man or a bigger woman," he said.

Bates described a "sensual massage" as one in which a woman would provide very light touching on his body, "mostly on the stomach, they sit on your back. Very light touches, with fingernails . . . it provides a tingling sensation."

The women who have performed "sensual massage" on him before wore shorts and tank tops or lingerie, he said.

Instead of a "sensual massage," Bates said he instead got public humiliation for something he said would draw more attention than any murder story in Omaha in the last 20 years.

What Bates doesn't understand, and what you should this weekend before heading over to craigslist.org in your respective areas, is that the police in this country are freaking out about Craig and his lists. The murder in Boston has them paying closer attention to the "casual encounters" and "erotic services" sections of each city's page. Be careful-- you could end up like this dumbass:

"You could just as easily go in and look for a hot young girl to rub you down?" Sedlak said.

"It’s next to impossible with my schedule. It’s easier to get on my phone," he said.

Bates testified that he went directly to erotic section of Craigslist when seeking a "masseuse."

Sedlak asked, "Erotic means of sexual nature right?"

"It means sexy," Bates said.

Bates testified that he didn’t tell the truth when he gave an interview to World-Herald columnist Michael Kelly. Bates said he told Kelly that he had never before sought a massage.

"You weren’t truthful with press back then?" asked prosecutor Shelly Sedlak.

"Correct," replied Bates.

His attorney, James Martin Davis, later asked Bates why he didn’t admit during the newspaper interview that he had received massages before.

"One, my wife was there," Bates said. "Two, the press completely obliterated everything we’d said. They’d print that and completely go crazy with it."

Via Omaha.com.

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Divorced Couple in Custody Battle Over Dog Semen

Emily Farris — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:57:00 GMT

We've never had the desire to get a pet with a significant other (okay, maybe once). It's much better going into the relationship knowing whose pet is whose so that when the inevitable split comes, we at least have our furry friends—who love us unconditionally—to cuddle up to. A not-so-wise couple that divorced seven years ago were back in court this week fighting over a dog. Sort-of.

Karen Scully, who lives in Florida, and her ex-husband, Anthony Scully, who stayed in Michigan after the divorce, have gone before Michigan family court judge Cheryl Matthews to determine which of them is legally entitled to frozen semen belonging to Cyrus, Regg and Romeo—dogs.

The three dogs, all AKC-registered bullmastiffs, are apparently worth $2,000, making their spunk just as valuable.

In the end, the judge—who at first asked "I asked, 'Am I Being Punk'd? Is this a 'Candid Camera' thing?"—ruled that it was not a divorce matter and told the couple they would have to ruff it out in civil court. Except she did not make that terrible pun; we did.

[Freep.com: Battle over frozen dog sperm gives judge pause -- and paws]

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Teenage Girl Sues Her Father For Grounding Her, Wins

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:52:00 GMT

A 12-year-old girl (now apparently 13) sued her father in 2008 for denying her permission to attend a class trip because she was grounded. According to the father, the child had been using the internet at his house after being instructed not to. He claims the girl was visiting sites he had previously blocked and possibly sharing pornographic images of herself.

This is a no-brainer, right? But this textbook example of a frivolous lawsuit not only wasn't thrown out, it's gone through one initial trial and an appeal, both of which resulted in the girl coming out ahead. How is this even possible?

Of course, there is a lot more to this story. Even the original CBC reporter who wrote extensively about the case neglected to mention the bitter (and I mean BITTER) divorce proceedings. The mother, it is alleged, heard about the grounding and decided she would pay for the trip herself, chaperone, and help the girl sue her father with the help of her mother's attorney. (Of course, you could look at it another way-- perhaps the mother was into the trip before the grounding, so the father found and excuse to mess with them.) Either way, this child is being manipulated by one or both awful parents-- and, even worse, the idiot judge let all proceed as if there were a real case here. Instead, he should have fined both parents $100,000 and taken the kid away from them. Okay, that's a little harsh, we admit-- $100,000 US is like $8 billion Canadian.

Seriously, though, check out what judicial jackass (i.e. the winning attorney) had to say about this:

"Going to court was a last resort," said Lucie Fortin, a legal aid attorney who represented the girl. "The question was that there was a problem between the father and the mother, and the child asked the court to intervene because it was important to her.

"The trip was very important to her."

The last resort? The last resort for us would've been for a compromise and the girl to lose internet at his house for six months but still go on the trip. Maybe. "The trip was very important to her?" Then maybe she shouldn't have used the internet after being instructed not to. For all the punishments we endured as kids, almost every one of them was because we broke a rule we knew better than to break. Tough. Shit. Girl.

The father and mother are no longer speaking, by the way. And so we move on into the 21st century, having learned so little...

Via CBC.

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Germany's Biggest Sex Scandal Comes To A Stunning Conclusion

Brian Fairbanks — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:33:00 GMT

Back in November, we alerted you to the story of Susanna Klatten, Germany's richest women, a billionaire and heir to a BMW fortune tainted by Nazism, who was embroiled in a then-breaking story of blackmail, sex tapes, extramarital affairs, and millions of euros in cash.

This week, the trial of her one-time lover, a creep by the name of Helg Sgarbi, a Swiss businessman who apparently specializes in these types of crimes. As the court date approached, new and shocking information came to light that reopened old wounds throughout the country and the world...

In 2007, Sgarbi seduced Klatten at an Austrian spa and later at a Munich hotel. It was the hotel owner himself who filmed the hidden-camera sex tape, according to our report:

...Klatten's alleged lover and a friend of his, a hotel owner who filmed sexual trysts in his establishment. The duo hoped to received 40 million euros, but had to settle for 7.5 million from Klatten. Klatten, who helped foil her own kidnapping at the age of 16, was already talking to the cops.

Klatten may have hoped that, in going to the police, her husband would not learn of the plot, affair, and the lost 7.5 million. Too late-- there was a leak and soon the scandal made international headlines. Then there was this, according to Gawker:

What motivated Sgarbi? Reportedly, his real name was Helg Russak, and he was the descendant of forced laborers who worked in BMW factories during World War II — which made his choice of Geiss even odder.

Klatten's grandfather, Günther Quandt, served as an advisor to Hitler; his factories made batteries for Germany's submarines. His first wife, Magda, divorced him and married Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister. The Quandt family, which had denied involvement in the regime for decades, agreed to fund an investigation into their past after a documentary film presented incontrovertible evidence of BMW's complicity. [Gawker]

We almost started to feel sympathy for the girl... but that was before we learned that he was also guilty of extorting money from three other wealthy women, none of whom are yet rumored to have any Nazi ties...

Yesterday, on the first day of his trial, Helg confessed to all the charges and was sentenced to a mere six years in prison for sparing Germany a lengthy and embarrassing case. The public, mouths frothing, were left saying, "Wha happen?" and actually expressed great disappointment the thing didn't drag out for months...

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While You Were Sleeping: Principal Walks In At The Wrong Moment

Brian Fairbanks — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:08:00 GMT

Rush Limbaugh is at it again: he's predicting Ted Kennedy is going to die soon.

This cat amuses the bejesus out of our stupid asses.

M.I.A. denied naming her baby Ickitt... but hasn't convinced us of this yet because she won't say what she did name the lil' thang.

Questions remain: will Specter switch to the Democrats? Will Howard Dean join the Cabinet? And is Al Franken ever going to be named Senator?

Moby says what we're all thinking: the weather is too harsh up here in the winter and it's time to migrate elsewhere... at least from October through May.

Wanna be Bruce Lee?

Live in Sweden and want to hire a teenage babysitter? You might reconsider that after reading this.

Rihanna is trying to focus on "new music," which is easy when your boyfriend/husband is busy with the trial for beating you up, spends his nights drinking illegally, and has a soon-to-be-condemned album of his own to work on.

And a school principal in Arizona is gouging his eyes out after walking in a student getting it on with a teacher.

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Sloppy Seconds: What Will Rihanna Say to Chris Brown?

Emily Farris — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 23:15:00 GMT

Most likely playing off of the popular Facebook meme 25 things is the new blog 25 Things About My Sexuality, where people can randomly post just that. [25ThingsAboutMySexuality]

Slumdog Millionaire's Freida Pinto has signed onto Woody Allend's latest film. [AfterEllen]

Is San Francisco about to lose the Chronicle to the recession? That's it, we're taking our bottle of Jameson and our box of Entenmann's rich frosted donuts and crawling into a cave until this is all over. [Bloomberg]

Um, what is Kim Kardashian doing with a pet chimp? [Us]

If drinking is good for your heart but could lead to cancer what do you choose? If you're us, and have a history of heart disease in your family and no known cases of cancer, you drink! [ABC]

Rihanna will reportedly face her ex-boyfriend Chris Brown (who allegedly beat the hell out of her, in case you haven't heard) in court when his criminal threats case goes to trial. [Starpulse]

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While You Were Sleeping: Woody And the Scarlett-Penelope Makeout Scene

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 14:08:00 GMT

How does a man "accidentally" castrate himself and flush his own penis down the toilet?

Robin Quivers has some diet tips for you that sound similar to everything else you've heard, except they worked for her.

It's nice to see that Etta James is as crazy as we remember her from a 2008 concert.

Are you an ex-masturbator? We are-- although only from this moment until the moment after this post is complete.

Don't miss John Cleese on Jimmy Kimmel.

Barry Bonds plead not guilty to charges of perjury. Does this guy ever stop lying?

Joe Satriani won't have his goons stalk Coldplay at the Grammy's.

Michael Phelps has been suspended from swimming and lost his Corn Flakes deal. So what?

And Woody Allen wasn't even there to witness Scarlett and Penelope make out. Huh? What kind of director misses that scene?

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Sex Crimes Prosecutor Charged With Twelve, Count 'Em, Twelve Sex Crimes

Brian Fairbanks — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 17:37:00 GMT

From the Hypocrite Files: Martinez, California prosecutor Michael Gressett with twelve sex offenses, ranging from forced oral copulation to rape, stemming from an incident that took place back in May.

But Gressett says the woman is making up the story in a vengeful attempt to ruin his career.

The counts are as follows:

(3) forced sexual penetration

(4) sodomy by force

(2) forcible rape

(1) false imprisonment

(1) forced oral copulation

(1) some undetermined threatening charge

The victim is basically accusing him of the male version of the Sharon Stone character from Basic Instinct, claiming he used an icepick (and handgun, just for the hell of it) to keep her from struggling. But she was already tied up, so why did he need both a handgun and an icepick?

Something stinks about this whole case, and it's not just the fact that she waited five months before going to the police, which often happens in cases of acquaintance rape. It's just too simple-- a sex crimes prosecutor commits as many sex crimes as are humanly possible in one afternoon and not only ties the woman up, but uses a gun and a sharp object to keep her from fighting back. Then he just lets her leave his house and no one hears about it for five months.

In other words, we wouldn't be surprised if the charges are true, but in this case, we wouldn't be surprised if this woman's story starts to come up apart immediately...

Via Mercury News.

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While You Were Sleeping: The Third Iron Man

Brian Fairbanks — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:08:00 GMT

A while back, we told you about the man in Duncanville, Texas facing trial for operating a swingers club out of his home. He was convicted yesterday of misdemeanor charges that had accused him of operating a sex "business."

Now Playboy is selling off its art collection to help stay afloat.

An anonymous blogger for The Frisky talked about her labiaplasty:

My unruly butterfly wings—otherwise known as my labia—interfered with my sexual activities. Riding a bike for more than 15 minutes? Painful. Camel toe? Obvious. Intercourse? Lube did little to relieve all that smooshing, pulling, stretching, especially when condoms were involved.
And then there were the unsolicited anatomical editorials that I’d received over the years, ranging from the respectfully observant, “You’re very floral,” to the horrifying, “Damn, girl. You got a fat p***y!,” to the complimentary, “Actually, I like it full and lippy ... That’s my thing.”

Obnoxious jerks that we are, we thought only dudes had problems with bike seats. Meanwhile...

This is a very interesting rundown of Senate and Congressional races in the A through H states.

Britney Spears will have her financial and business affairs permanently overseen by Papa Spears.

Michael Caine and Scarlett Johansson will host the Nobel concert on December 11th, featuring Diana Ross, Feist and others.

The Iron Man crew is doing The Avengers as well? Then we're suddenly excited for that one...

And Steven Page of Barenaked Ladies fame is not going to have to do hard time.

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While You Were Sleeping: Watch Karl Rove Fight Off A Bunch of Hippies

Brian Fairbanks — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 14:35:00 GMT

Richard Branson and his kids set off from New York at 2 a.m. in an attempt to break the transatlantic speed record by arriving in England in under six days.

What is up with these cop impersonators lately? First, there was the fake cop who pulled over a guy who turned out to be his neighbor, who called the real police on him. Now, in our hometown of Hartford, Connecticut, a couple of phonies pulled over-- you called it-- an actual cop.

A decision was reached in the Britney Spears driving trial...

A mistrial was declared Tuesday in Britney Spears’s misdemeanor trial for driving without a license. The jury was deadlocked 10-2 in favor of the singer’s innocence, the foreman said in open court. “The jury is hopelessly deadlocked, and I declare this a mistrial,” stated Judge James A. Steele. The jury had deliberated for three days... [CelebSpin]

Wait, how the hell could someone actually be innocent of driving without a license? The record shows she didn't have a license, everyone admits she was driving during the time she didn't have a license, and then she goes to trial for it. Someone needs to explain this justice system of ours...

Check out this bizarre incident in which a nutjob hippie lady from San Francisco fails in an attempt to arrest Karl Rove for treason.

Meanwhile, Tina Fey says the trick to playing GOP favorite Sarah Palin is that she glues her ears down. Fey's own, that is...

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Woman Gets Life For... Sex With A Five-Year-Old Boy?!

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 18:09:00 GMT

Do we think it's fair that a 33-year-old woman, who was then only 21, got such a harsh punishment for having sex with a five-year-old under her then-husband's direction?

Here are the facts:

Kelly Lumadue, seen above, was barely legal herself when she had sex with a five-year-old boy. Lumadue claims her husband, now since passed away, all but forced her to get it on with the kid for her husband's leering camera.

In 2003, a garbageman found the tape, watched it, and reported Lumadue and her husband to the authorities. Bud, the hubby, died soon thereafter, of cancer. The boy, now a teenager, has no recollection of the events... at least not yet... and no one seems to know how he ended up in Lumadue's house.

Under Florida state law for capital sexual battery offenses, life in prison without the possibility of parole is the only permitted sentence, which is exactly what Lumadue received.

The question is not whether the crime was heinous. The question is whether we believe the crime was cruel enough to permit what's basically a death sentence. What do you think?

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Today in WTF: Female Stripper Charged With Raping Customer

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:24:00 GMT

We're going to have to tread lightly with this one...

A woman in Australia named Linda Maree Naggs was performing a striptease and or a lapdance at a bachelor party amid a parade of entertainers. The next thing she knew, she was charged with raping a man who was at that party. Here's what we think could have happened:

1) She actually did rape the guy. Duh, obviously it's possibly the charge is true. She could have taken off his pants and sat on his dick or roughed him up or maybe blown him when he was drunk. Anything could've happened, really.

2) The guy in the story is actually the groom and his fiancee found out, so he told her the stripper had raped him. Unlikely, but we're exploring all options out of a sense of fairness.

3) Maybe the newspaper reports of Naggs having "sexually penetrated the man" are poorly worded. Maybe Australia's sex laws are phrased in such a way to include inappropriate dancing/touching/blowing as rape, instead of something closer to a misdemeanor.

What do you think? Obviously, no one knows the exact details of the case-- for one thing, both parties have placed gag orders on themselves, despite the magistrate's decision to allow the facts be made public-- so we can only speculate... but are we missing some possibilities here? (Obviously, we'll provide more details if they ever become available...)

Image via MTV.

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You Know Your Wedding Was A Blast When You Were Both Tasered... Twice

Brian Fairbanks — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:48:00 GMT

We know it's still technically wedding season, but that doesn't explain why the last week or two has brought us some of the most insane wedding stories since the dawn of time. This time, however, we think we've found the one tale that will stand the test of time...

Because, seriously, how could a party this wild not be worth traveling, getting dressed up, and slipping the bride and groom a couple bucks?

1) Receptions can get out of hand, and often the police need to be called to clear the place out if it's 3:30 in the morning and staff overtime wasn't in the budget. But rarely do they get so out of hand that police officers from 14 precincts and departments arrive and taser the hell out of the bride and groom, then arrest them and make them spend their wedding nights in separate jail cells:

"The short version of the story is they didn't want to quit their partying," said Mike Sepic, Berrien County, Mich., chief assistant prosecutor. "If you put this in the class of wedding receptions gone bad, I guess this would take the cake."

2) Yuk, yuk. Also arrested that night, thanks to their interference in the arrests of the relatives, the groom's father, aunt, cousin, and uncle, each of whom ended up paying $450 and pleading to lesser charges.

3) The fairytale beach wedding turned ugly when Tom Burnison, co-owner of the gallery in which the reception was taking place, got angry with a reveler who tried to break a plate-glass window with one of his lamps. Burnison called the police, who trickled in and were allegedly met by angry, "cursing" guests:

"[The groom] got angry and started yelling, 'What are you doing? This is my wedding! You're making my wife cry!' " Skowron said. "The crowd was trying to hold back the groom from mouthing off more, but finally he broke free, and they had to take him down," Sepic said of police. "He was heading for the officers. . . . Then the bride moved in and tried to interfere."

4) What happened next, as the wedding photographer agrees, represents a total police overreaction and lends credence to the movement against the use of Tasers on unarmed civilians: as the groom was knocked to the ground, his wife held on to him; because of this, she ended getting shocked when he got shocked. The whole party quickly fell apart, and the unhappy couple were hauled off to the pen.

5) The coda to all this and what makes the story so memorable is the little paragraph the Chicago Sun Times failed to elaborate on:

Two nights later, the bride and groom were again arrested in Michigan -- and again shocked by a stun gun -- after struggling with police investigating a noise complain... The groom was charged with pushing his new wife down during that incident, but the charge was later dropped as part of a plea bargain...

6) What happened? Were they beating the crap out of each other? Arguing over whose fault it was their reception ended in disaster? We'd really rather have heard that these two went on to fifty years of a pain-free marriage, made all the stronger by the stormy wedding day. Two friends of ours were just married in New York and their honeymoon was similarly full of chaos: from car breakdowns to spider attacks to being locked out of their suite on the one night they had it reserved... and so on. But as their relatives reminded them, "Most great marriages had auspicious starts..."

Let's hope the same goes for these two... because things couldn't have gotten off to a worse start, no?

Photo and excerpts from the Chicago Sun-Times.

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This Week In Gayness: Man Gets 150 Days For Being Accessory To Gay Murder

Brian Fairbanks — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:40:00 GMT

An anti-gay advocate told his viewers to pray for God to rain (water? frogs?) down on Obama's outdoor acceptance speech later this month.

Wait, how can someone be both gay and a Mormon? Good luck to you, pal, 'cause that's a rough road yonder.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown, himself a former Governor, may have higher aspirations (again.) Which may or may not be the reason he says gay marriage will remain legal in the state, regardless of the outcome of Proposition 8.

Tila Tequila appears to be in a relationship with a woman. The endless putdowns from Lesbiantopia make Tequila's continued celebrity a bit more tolerable.

A businessman in Colorado appears to be a lock for the next openly-gay Congressperson after winning the Democratic primary.

About.com has Gay Pride pics from Chicago.

A 9/11 scammer who turned to blogging about gay life for extra cash has been extradited. Fucker.

Female-on-female prisoner violence has been exposed at one notorious New York prison.

UK straight divorce? 50 percent. UK gay divorce? Zero percent.

And the saddest news of the week is this:

Aleksandr Shevchenko was convicted of disturbing the peace after allegedly throwing a bottle at Satender Singh during a confrontation in July 2007 at a Sacramento-area lake. The jury deadlocked on whether to add a hate-crime charge to Shevchenko's sentence.

His friend, of course, is the one that threw that fatal punch that killed Singh. We're pretty sure he'll get community service, though.

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Love Myself for Hating You: Tila Tequila

New Orleans Politician Arrested While Getting-- How Perfect-- A Lap Dance

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Move Over Lazy Young People, Persephone Lewin's Day Puts Yours To Shame

Brian Fairbanks — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:38:00 GMT

Persephone Lewin, who is somewhere in the neighborhood of 45, is a grandmother, solver of murders, burlesque dancer, author, comedian, yachtswoman, and YouTube sensation. We fear she'll ask us what we do with our time...

From an article in an English newspaper, we learn she is a

Yachtswoman, forensic science writer, businesswoman, mother, grandmother, musician, comedienne – oh, and burlesque artist; catch her act on YouTube...That’s her real name, by the way. Her mother was Greek so, naturally, named her daughter after a Greek goddess.

We further discover:

1) She is 4-foot-11 and has over 400 pairs of shoes

2) Lewin met her husband at a yacht club

3) She was a student at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and has done stand-up

4) She had "her own manufacturing company (it made security fixings), [spent] ten years of raising their two children and then, something completely different, [worked in] forensic science."

5) Her husband worked for the coppers, matching up bite marks on murder victims to dental records of possible suspects. Together, their work launched a successful dual-autobiography and solved at least one murder, the strange death of a nine-year-old girl.

6) Even before all that:

She could sing, dance, play the trumpet and had a real knack for making fin de siècle costumes. At this point she hadn’t heard of burlesque, but that’s what her act became. So, complete with that penguin – now called Freddie – she took her very visual act to London, and is now a regular at Madam JoJo’s Burlesque Show in Soho.

Persephone doesn't strip so much as hint at the stripping to come later on in this clip from her act. Not to worry, your imagination should do the rest...

Via the Gazette.

Scanner Emily's Burlesque Fantasy Comes True, Sort Of

Hot Teacher Busted For Hosting Sex & Drugs Party

90-Year-Old Woman Served Lunch By Half-Naked Man (And It's Her Make-A-Wish Wish, Too)

Sloppy Seconds: Which Pop Star Might Play The Lead In The Next Tarantino Film?

New Orleans Politician Arrested While Getting-- How Perfect-- A Lap Dance

Today In WTF: 1970s Kidnapper, Still On The Lam, Turns Up With Cloned Dogs?

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 21:03:00 GMT

There's a Lifetime movie in here somewhere... if the female leads in Lifetime movies were kidnapping rapist beauty pageant winners who fall in love with Mormon missionaries, stalk them for decades, change their names, go on the lam, and turn up in the news in 2008 as the owner of cloned dogs...

Time Magazine broke a story that shows Bernann McKinney, owner of five pitbulls she claims to have have had cloned in Seoul from the ear of her beloved (now deceased) former dog, to be, with a great degree of certainty, none other than wanted bail jumper Joyce McKinney, the former Miss Wyoming.

There is so much goodness here, you're just going to have to settle for the original, full-length piece, although here's a taste in the meantime:

The 27-year-old McKinney was accused in court [in 1977]... of abducting 21-year-old Mormon missionary Kirk Anderson from a church in a London suburb... [where] he was chained to a [cottage] bed and forced to have sex with McKinney for three days. McKinney, once a Mormon herself, was said to have formed a crush on him after they'd first had sex in '75. Anderson tried to break off the relationship but McKinney... stalked him to England where [he'd become a] missionary to escape her attentions.
McKinney claimed that she was trying to rekindle her affair with Anderson using techniques of seduction recommended by... The Joy of Sex.
McKinney told the court that the chains, fur-lined manacles, rope, chloroform and wedding trousseau complete with "pink feathers and see-through nighties" were all props for the bondage sessions she planned for [him.] "We had such a fun time — just like old times," McKinney told the court in her native North Carolina drawl. "I love him so much that I would ski naked down Mount Everest with a carnation up my nose if he asked me to," she added. Such sexual frankness rather stuck out in a magistrates court in sedate, suburban Surrey, England, in those days.

For his part, Anderson claimed that he'd been kidnapped at gunpoint, forced to have sex while chained to the bed (and twice more unchained), and that, despite being six foot four and 240 lbs., had never resisted. "I had made a plan for my release," Anderson testified, "but it wasn't through running away. I was going to cooperate." Even after his ordeal, when McKinney and May drove him back to London and a long lunch in Trafalgar Square, he still cooperated.

We call bullshit on that last paragraph-- the entire paragraph. Anyway, there is some plausibility to this story; McKinney then went on the run with a friend who was also involved in the kidnapping, ending up in police custody in Atlanta, although she was released because her case was felt to be unworthy of an extradition order. In 1984, McKinney was busted again, this time in Utah, outside Anderson's office, with rope and handcuffs in her car. "Consensual," my ass. Soon after, all traces of her disappear... until...

In Seoul... [she] denied... that she is one and the same Joyce McKinney who is still technically a fugitive from British justice... Both [McKinney and Bernann] are former beauty queens, both often use a wheelchair, both owned a pitbull. And on the voter's register of Avery County, the North Carolina birthplace of the onetime Miss Wyoming, there is listed one Joyce Bernann McKinney. A clone perhaps?

Via Time.

Sex Writer On "Obscene" Website Sentenced To Home Detention

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 16:38:00 GMT

A woman whose website, Red Rose Stories, was shuttered three years ago by the Feds, pleaded guilty yesterday to obscenity charges and received a long term of probation plus six months of home confinement.

Wait, fiftysomething years after Howl and Naked Lunch, they're still busting people for "obscenity," particularly on the internet? We had to find out just what the site could have presented that could get its owner in so much trouble...

Karen Fletcher is the owner of Red Rose Stories. She's a 56-year-old Pennsylvania woman who happens to live in the district covered by crusading US attorney Mary Beth Buchanan, a staple of the Alberto Gonzales/George W. Bush Justice Department and her website contained

stories that allegedly involved bestiality, water sports, scat, bondage and domination, S&M, slavery, threesomes, orgies and sex with children.

Note that not one of Fletcher's pages featured photos of any kind, nor did the site explicitly encourage real-life encounters with children. After her arrest, Fletcher quipped that, to her, it seemed "the only legal sex stories are those that involve a man and a woman consenting to missionary position sex in a dark room.”

Buchanan "has gone on a rampage trying to stamp out expression that doesn't meet her standards of morality," Marc John Randazza, a law professor at the Barry University School of Law in Orlando, wrote on his blog.
Randazza, who teaches about free speech rights and other legal issues, acknowledges that the content of Red Rose Stories was shocking, but he suggested the U.S. Constitution protects fictional stories. "If you believe in the Constitution, and you believe in what this country means, you can NOT believe that any American should ever face prison for writing fiction -- no matter what the subject matter of that fiction might be," he wrote in a blog post.

What do you think? Was Fletcher a fool for writing about child sex and enjoying it?

Via Anarchist Librarians and PC World.

While You Were Sleeping: Which TV Female Character Do You Wanna Be?

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 13:15:00 GMT

Morgan Freeman was released from the hospital and will have to wear a neck brace for six months or more.

Don't read this if you want to go on disliking Lauren Conrad.

Who are the two richest kids in Showbiz? If you guessed Ricky Schroeder, you really aren't reading the right blog...

1= Miley Cyrus, $26 million (GBP13 million) 1= Daniel Radcliffe, $26 million (GBP13 million) 3. Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, $15 million (GBP7.5 million) 4. The Jonas Brothers, $12 million (GBP6 million) 5. Zac Efron, $5.8 million (GBP2.9 million).

We don't think the Jonas Brothers should count because there are, what, how many of them... and re-spawning every minute?

The World's Greatest Dad is guilty of being one of the world's scuzziest.

Obama and Bush were the targets one of main's assassination plots, unrelated to yesterday's story about the teenage boy who planned to kill W.

What do you think of Defamer's list of the Top 10 TV Characters Women Want To Be Like And Women Want To Be With? Sexist? Spot on?

Tom Selleck will join "Dancing With The Stars?" He's not looking too shabby these days, either, he's probably in proper shape...

And Battlestar Galactica fans, rejoice: a two-hour special will air... next year.

Related:

"World's Greatest Dad" Arrested In Online Sex Sting

"Battlestar Galactica": In Desperate Need of a Safeword?

Sloppy Seconds: Is Sarah Jessica Parker the Unsexiest Woman In Hollywood?

Top 10 Teen Pop Stars

Sloppy Seconds: The Stunning Conclusion To The Pimp Minister's Trial

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 21:27:00 GMT

The most powerful story you'll read all day is here.

A-Rod: By the way, I don't owe you anything! Except millions, of course.

Jennifer Aniston's assistant tried to stop stalkographers from snapping photos of her boss' nipples. Or so The Superficial wishes. (In any case, there are very see-through Rihanna photos as well.)

Recently-resurfaced Beatles tapes are up for auction. Bootleg 'em for us, will ya?

A nuclear facility in California, under investigation for false reporting, is receiving safety awards.

Living together first has always increased the likelihood of divorce, contrary to popular belief. A new study says that this is not the fault of cohabitation.

Britney's Dad is still keeping her under his thumb.

And the pimp minister trial ended in defeat... but for whom?

The Arizona attorney general's office says a jury in Tucson has ordered a man who ran a prostitution business to forfeit nearly $2 million in ill-gotten gains.
The jury found 52-year-old John A. LaVoie guilty of 22 civil counts of racketeering. The attorney general's office says he was ordered to forfeit $850,000 he earned from the prostitution business, $81,000 in cash police seized during a raid and give up an office building worth up to $1 million.

LaVoie claimed he was a minister of the Church of Liberty, a church he founded. He ran a massage and prostitution business in his building called Angel's Heaven.

LaVoie claimed Angel's Heaven was part of his church, and clients only gave donations. [Via AZ Central]

Related:

Who Would You Rather: Jennifer Aniston vs. Jennifer Connelly

Britney Spears Released from Psychiatric Ward, Let's Have a Party

Liz Phair Unveils The Secret To A Great Nude Photo Shoot

Fox News Thinks Madonna Broke A-Rod's Rod

Sloppy Seconds: Amy Winehouse's Spiked Drink

Breaking News: Nerve Conquers All, Or At Least The Child Online Protection Act Trial

Brian Fairbanks — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 19:32:00 GMT

Do you guys remember the Live From The COPA Trial blog Nerve ran a few years back?

Word just came in from Will Doig, our Editor-In-Chief, that Nerve, Salon, and other websites have won their ACLU-led free speech fight against the dangerous Child Online Protection Act, after years of appeals and other legal wrangling by the government...

Tonight, we'll be rounding up the neighborhood children, strapping them to the chairs, and prying their eyes open to see unquestionable filth like Victoria's Secret, Barack Obama.com, and the "penis balloons" tag on Scanner, all of which will surely damage them for life. Okay, we're kidding, but we'll definitely be celebrating our glorious victory, which is in no small part thanks to testimony by defendent and Nerve CEO, Rufus Griscom...

One ACLU lawyer writes in:

We won! The Third Circuit has affirmed the district court finding that COPA is unconstitutional.

According to Wikipedia:

On March 22, 2007, U.S. District Judge Lowell A. Reed, Jr. once again struck down the Child Online Protection Act,^[7] finding the law facially violates the First and Fifth Amendments of the United States Constitution. Reed issued an order permanently enjoining the government from enforcing COPA, commenting that "perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection."^[8] The government again appealed, and the case is now before the Third Circuit.^[9]
COPA... is a law in the United States of America, passed in 1998 with the declared purpose of protecting minors from harmful sexual material on the Internet. The federal courts have ruled that the law violates the constitutional protection of free speech, and therefore have blocked it from taking effect. Several US states have since passed similar laws.
The law was part of a series of efforts by US lawmakers legislating over Internet pornography. Parts of the earlier and much broader Communications Decency Act had been struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court; COPA was a direct response to that decision, narrowing the range of material covered. COPA only limits commercial speech and only affects providers based within the United States.

We'll have more on this emerging story, including an interview with an ACLU lawyer, in the very near future...

Iowa Strip Club Features 17-Year-Old Dancer, Claims Artistic License

Brian Fairbanks — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:33:00 GMT

In Iowa, in the land where they let the children cry, a man is on trial after police learned a seventeen-year-old girl had twice performed at his strip club... or is it his performing arts center?

Clarence Judy owns a venue called Shotgun Geniez in the town of Hamburg. (We had to check to make sure this was, in fact, in the United States and not Germany before writing this.) No one is questioning this or the central event of the case, that

a 17-year-old got on stage at Shotgun Geniez and danced fully nude twice the night of July 21, 2007. The pivotal question was whether or not that was permissible under the Iowa law that exempts theaters, concert halls, art centers, museums, or similar establishments from public decency laws.

Judy argues that, for several reasons, he isn't responsible for what happened, claiming that because performers are independent contractors, they are not employees. He also says they are not required to perform in the nude, although he admits that most attendees are there for the T&A. He hands out sketchbooks, which is hilarious bullshit from our point of view, hoping that either a) patrons will draw the models like it's some sort of night class or b) people will actually believe he's trying to turn his girls into artistic nudes.

Judy testified that the girl was snuck into the club by her friends and that he didn’t see her go in.

“If I would have seen her I would have ID’ed her because I didn’t know her,” he said in court.

He said the group of eight was crammed into the small entry way and blocked his view from the window purposefully.

The venue's website calls itself a "Sensual Entertainment Theater," although the web address contains the phrase "stripclub": http://shotgungeniez.iowastripclubs.com/

Via Nebraska City News-Press (Iowa.)

Today in WTF: Guy Gets Off (For/On) Getting 14-Year-Old Girl Drunk, Violating Her

Brian Fairbanks — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:20:00 GMT

This is such a crazy clusterfuck of a court case, we're going to do something we almost never do: take the entire article relaying the facts of the case and present them to you, without abbreviation. You have to read every word to get the full picture...

Having sex with a drunken 14-year-old he had plied with alcohol was not a criminal offence by [a] former Calgary man, a judge ruled yesterday.
Justice Peter McIntyre said there was insufficient evidence the girl didn't consent to having sex with Trevor Byron Niebergall.
But McIntyre did find Niebergall guilty of sexual assault for placing his genitals on the girl's face after she passed out -- an act the offender captured on his cellphone camera and showed to co-workers.
McIntyre said the fact the teenage complainant didn't remember her sexual encounter with Niebergall at a December 2005 New Year's Eve party did not mean she hadn't consented.

He noted one witness said she appeared to have the capacity to consent when she and Niebergall went to a washroom in his brother's apartment, where they had sex. And the Queen's Bench judge said the girl willingly consumed large amounts of alcohol supplied by Niebergall even after he made lewd sexual comments.

Hold it! Let's break it down: there was insufficient evidence she didn't consent (rather than the other way around)... he put his dick on her face when she was asleep (but apparently that's not painting a picture for the judge of a pervert here)... she didn't remember having sex but still was somehow sober enough to consent... she was not too drunk to walk to a bathroom, which apparently means she was okay to operate sexual machinery... okay, okay, he was found guilty of assaulting her with that whole penis thing, so we'll say no more for now.

She said on three occasions the accused said he would drink with her if she performed a sexual act on him.
"The accused's lewd comments towards her did not compel her to leave," the judge said. "The complainant was not forced to consume alcohol -- she drank ... beer willingly and then switched to alcohol. It is not at all clear why she drank so heavily."

Because she was a drunk fourteen-year-old girl hanging out with older men and did not leave before they screwed her, there's no crime. Also, beer is not alcohol?

Niebergall, then 19, showed photographs of the teen, naked and passed out, to co-workers the following day, bragging he had had sex with her six times.

Nope, no punishment or even a charge for displaying this photo without permission.

But in his testimony he said they only had sex twice, one in the bathroom and later when other partygoers had left and both times with her consent.

Ha ha. Well, at least he couldn't exaggerate the size of his manhood, since it's in the picture.

McIntyre said because the girl drank so heavily and had little recollection of events at the party, he could not accept her claim she didn't agree to have sex.
"Her evidence was not reliable after she started drinking," he said.
Crown prosecutor Susan Kennedy said a 45- to 60-day jail term is warranted for the incident which occurred after the teen passed out.
Defence lawyer Pat Flynn has requested a pre-sentence report before making his full submissions. The case returns to court on Oct. 14.

We understand that drunkenness taints the case and the fact that the girl doesn't remember what happened really hurts the prosecution's chances of a conviction for anything, but that still doesn't mean we like the verdict.

Remember that, girls-- there's a new sheriff in town. Drink so much as a beer and get violated in every orifice (sorry for that imagery), the courts won't be there to protect you.

Via The Calgary Sun.

Ex-Diplomat On Trial For Child Sex: It's Okay To Have Sex With Kids

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 19:33:00 GMT

Gons G. Nachman, which he swears is his real name, pleaded guilty in Virginia a few months back to possessing child pornography. Now his trial has taken an interesting twist after he made what some people think is an outrageous claim...

[The] ex-diplomat convicted of having sex with teenage girls in the Congo and Brazil and taping the encounters is asking a judge for leniency, claiming that cultural differences in those countries make sex with girls more acceptable.
[H]e had sex with 14- to 17-year-old girls while serving as a consular officer in Brazil and Congo and documenting the encounters in pictures and videos.

Of course, before anyone gets too pissed off, remember that 14**, 15, 16, 17 are all ages of consent in various American states. (Although, it should be pointed out, these laws are mostly designed to protect teenagers who have younger sex partners from prosecution; in other words, in most states, adults over 18 cannot have sex with a person under 18; whereas, for example, a 14 year old guy can have sex with a 17 year old girl in some states and neither one will be charged.)

The trial is postponed while Nachman undergoes a psychiatric evaluation. We doubt a Federal judge is going to go easy on a guy just because "things are different in [his] country." That argument has never worked before, but this is the American justice system we're talking about....

Via News-Observer.

**technically, although in this case it would probably be illegal

Corrupt Congresswoman Does Topless Shoot From Prison

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:14:00 GMT

Yidis Medina was convicted last month of taking bribes to agree to amend the Colombian constitution, posed nude for a men's magazine from her lovely new prison cell.

Medina, who is still facing separate kidnapping charges from an "unrelated" matter (wow-- how she does get around), told SoHo that politics hasn't really helped her in her quest for the perfect existence:

"What I want is to get out of political life, which has brought me so many unwelcome things," she said.

Classic understatement of the day. The unwelcome things include four years of house arrest, which she will serve following the kidnapping trial that is keeping her in the slammer, thanks to

taking illegal favors from government officials in return for voting for the constitutional amendment that permitted the 2006 re-election.
She says she went public with her tale of corruption after the government failed to deliver favors -- including being able to name her friends to local commissions in her home province -- that it had promised in exchange for her vote.

As for the kidnapping, the details are rather vague:

The prosecution announced on July 1 it is investigating Medina for possible ties to rebel group ELN, after a Bucaramanga lawmaker accused her of being involved in kidnapping.

Medina’s lawyer claims Medina simply was a victim of the crime, but the lawmaker accuses Medina of speaking to the kidnappers in a commanding tone and seemed connected to them.

Medina made a classic mistake of even speaking-- the kidnappers would have likley obeyed and become lost in her breasts had she merely exposed them, as she is doing now, from her posh new jail cell:

Via Colombia Reports and Reuters.

Video of the Day: How Not to Fake a Courtroom Heart Attack

Emily Farris — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 19:07:00 GMT

http://view.break.com/531358 - Watch more free videos

He just looks too good, right? Maybe he should have peed his pants or something.

Democratic Leaders Accused of Satantic Sex & Kidnapping, Woo Hoo

Brian Fairbanks — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:06:00 GMT

Our right-wing readers are going to be thrilled with this story, while the rest of us are going to wince with embarrassment... at best...

1) A Durham, NC couple was charged with kidnapping, assault, rape, and other un-PC crimes after shocking revelations began to appear in a local courtroom.

2) According to an anonymous couple that met Joy Johnson and Joseph Craig (via the internet, it seems), the foursome shared an interest in Our Everloving Master, Mr. Satan.

3) The anonymous couple dropped by for tea and were rewarded for their devotion by being

shackled... to beds, kept... in dog cages and starved.... [Craig, the hubby] was charged with beating the man with a cane and a cord and with raping the woman.

4) The assistant DA provides our Understatement of the 21st and 22nd Century, for sure:

"This goes well above what they were interested in doing."

5) According to the local news

Johnson, who was third vice-chair of the Durham County Democratic Party and vice-chair for the Young Democrats, was charged with two counts of aiding and abetting. Prosecutors said she knew her husband planned the crime and watched as they were committed.
She has resigned her positions with the Democratic Party, said state Sen. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham.
"She seemed to be a very open, reasonable, responsible person, but certainly, the allegations that have been made are shocking to everybody who has known her," McKissick said. "We wish her the best going through this difficult and trying time."

I'm sure it was very "trying" for her, poor baby.

6) Our favorite part, which most news sources overlooked, is their website:

Craig and Johnson operate a business called Indigo Dawn Inc. that is described on a Web site as a spiritual growth service offering "past life reconstruction" and "communication with spirit guides." The site talks about Johnson's activism and describes Craig as a reverend and a "devout student of magick."

Can the Lifetime movie be far behind.

Via WRAL.

This Week in Gayness: Gay Men Overdoing It?

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:20:00 GMT

A story that may make you believe in a higher power, looking down and laughing at the stupids: In Arizona yesterday, a bill that would have put a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage fell in the Senate... by one vote. According to Lee Bolin of the LGBT Caucus:

Karen Johnson, the Republican who missed the vote, is so right-wing that she was a Buchanan delegate at the 1996 Republican National Convention. She must be gnashing her teeth right about now.

We should send her our thanks... although that might antagonize her enough to put this thing back up for a vote. Oh well, let's just enjoy it while it lasts.

The retirement of Republican State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno of New York could put gay marriage in play again in the state.

Have anything against South Carolina? Some people do now. A man was killed by a blow to the head-- a gay man, that is-- and his killer got three years in jail. As some legal experts put it, in South Carolina, this was the best that could be done under the law, since the jury convicted him only of involuntary manslaughter, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in jail.

An Oklahoma judge is fighting a new rule that would prevent him from belonging to an organization that "discriminates based on sexual preferences."

And the headline of the week, via Gay/Lesbian News: Newly Out Gay Man Overdoing It?

Scanner Roundtable: Supreme Court Rules Against Executions For Child Rape

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:35:00 GMT

Yesterday, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled, by a 5-4 margin (as usual), that the death penalty cannot be used on rapists who do not commit murder.

This immediately affects a case in Louisiana, but Texas was prepared for this possibility.

The decision does not entirely overturn Jessica's Law in Texas, the statute named after Jessica Lunsford, a Florida girl who was abducted and killed in 2005. The ruling invalidates the Texas death provision, but legislators created a fallback position in the statute: Life without parole would apply if capital punishment for child rape was outlawed.

We're against the death penalty in every form, mainly because the idea of someone rotting in prison, closed up in a cubicle the size of our closet for decades on end seems way more fitting for a murderer than a few years in prison and then a quick, possibly painful death. And we read Dead Man Walking when we were about 13, so that could have something to do with it.

What do you think? Did the Supreme Court make the right call or are they whimps? Should the death penalty be legal at all?

Via the Dallas Morning News.

Sloppy Seconds: Cher's Nightmare

Brian Fairbanks — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:10:00 GMT

Is Anne Hathaway's ex addicted to "opiates," suffering from a sinus infection, or merely a drama queen trying to disrupt his own trial? During a court appearance today, Raffaello Follieri, who is charged with money laundering and wire fraud, collapsed and had to be given medical attention. He also tested positive for opiates, which his spokespeople claim is related to the infection, not drug use. Wow-- hey, Anne-- interested in dating boring guys for a change?

We understand that Knight Rider on TV without His Hoffelness is an unwise proposition for a TV producer, we'd rather that the original show's star just shaddup about it.

A baby girl was born on an F train platform in the New York City subway system. In an unrelated story, workers all along 6th Avenue were sacked for lamely excusing their tardiness.

The gods must be crazy: a Hindu monkey deity endorsed Barack Obama this week in New Delhi.

Richie Sambora is supporting his ex, Heather Locklear, as she enters rehab for depression and anxiety. Sambora swore to reporters he will be living on a prayer until Locklear is recovered. (We didn't know what else to say about this one, sorry!)

Al Pacino's next movie? For some reason, this would be perfect for him: a dude rolls into town, a la Sidney Poitier in In The Heat of the Night, whips out a badge and gun, claims to be a cop, and then is allowed to do his thing locally. Except in this case, the "cop" was a bankrupt criminal who robbed 17 people of their money and meth. Oops-- now I know what those pesky Background Check forms are for.

And Cher had a close call with Calvin Hutton Houghland, a nutty admirer in a Tennessee club. She was in a roped off VIP lounge of Tootsie's Orchid Lounge when a drunk-ass mofo grabbed her by the waist and made several other attempts to molest her. Although Cher declined to press charges, get this:

When security blocked his attempts to approach the singer, Houghland called police to say he'd been assaulted. Police say Cher declined to prosecute but Houghland asked to be arrested.

Houghland failed a self-requested field sobriety test. His bond was set at $3,000.