So Sue Me… - FishbowlLA

Day Two of IMDb Trial Full of Juicy Tidbits

Richard Horgan — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 11:00:45 +0000

It will never be as memorable as A Civil Action, The Verdict or My Cousin Vinny. But there’s no denying that by suing IMDb, 41-year-old actress Huong Huang (a.k.a. Junie Hoang) has cleverly cast herself in the best lead role of her career.

Per a THR Esq. report by guest contributor (and attorney) Venkat Balasubramani, all sorts of fun testimony transpired Tuesday in the Pacific Northwest courtesy of Huang, her agent and IMDb’s customer service manager. And… if folks at a certain other I-acronym organization are paying attention, more real-life drama may be in the plaintiff’s future:

Hoang emphasized that her income decreased following IMDb’s display of her true birthdate. She testified that she amended her tax returns and that the amounts of money disclosed in tax filings did not present the full extent of her income.

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LA Times Delivery Drivers Shot by LAPD Get $40,000 in Lieu of New Truck

Matthew Fleischer — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 11:48:11 +0000

Well, this was infinitely more complicated than it needed to be. After pumping 102 bullets into the truck of Margie Carranza, 47, and her mother, Emma Hernandez, 71, during the hunt for Christopher Dorner, LAPD volunteered to replace the truck, which the women used to deliver newspapers. When it came time to actually make good on its promise, however, the LAPD tried to force the women to pay the taxes on the new truck, claiming its hands were tied by the IRS.

According to the LA Times, the LAPD finally came to its senses yesterday and worked out a reasonable solution: give the women $40,000 so they can buy their own truck, and still afford to pay the relevant taxes.

The voluntary settlement still doesn’t prevent the pair from suing LAPD, particularly for shooting Hernandez twice in the neck. We’ll see if it will still buys the goodwill that it should have if it had been handled sensibly.

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Reuters Social Media Editor Matthew Keys Indicted for Aiding Anonymous

Matthew Fleischer — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 18:34:27 +0000

OK, this is an odd one. Matthew Keys, a social media editor at Reuters and a former employee of the Tribune Company-owned Fox affiliate KTXL in Sacramento, has just been charged by the feds with helping Anonymous hack into the Tribune Company website in late 2010. More specifically, they are charging Keys with giving away log in keys to the Tribune website in an online chat room. Someone then took the log in data and used it to mess with the online version of an LA Times news story.

From the Times:

The indictment says Keys provided members of the hacker group Anonymous with log-in credentials for a computer server belonging to KTXL FOX 40’s corporate parent, the Tribune Co.

According to the indictment, Keys identified himself on an Internet chat forum as a former Tribune Co. employee.

After providing log-in credentials, Keys allegedly encouraged the Anonymous members to disrupt the website. According to the indictment, at least one of the computer hackers used the credentials provided by Keys to log into the Tribune Co. server, and ultimately that hacker made changes to the web version of a Los Angeles Times news feature.

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Keith Olbermann and Current TV Finally Come to Settlement Terms

Matthew Fleischer — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 10:04:44 +0000

The Hollywood Reporter says that Current TV and Keith Olbermann have reached a settlement over his high-profile sacking last year. Not surprisingly, the terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Olbermann and Current released a joint statement to the trade.

“The parties are pleased to announce that a settlement has occurred, and that the terms are confidential. Nothing more will be disclosed regarding the settlement.”

Newspaper Delivery Drivers Shot by LAPD Won’t Get New Truck

Matthew Fleischer — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 13:58:40 +0000

The LAPD PR-nightmare continues unabated. After mistakenly shooting more than 100 holes through the truck of Margie Carranza, 47, and her mother, Emma Hernandez, 71, (who also took two bullets to the neck) during the hunt for Christopher Dorner, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck apologized and promised to replace their truck.

The new truck, however, is apparently not going to happen, according to NBC4, who spoke with the pair’s attorney Glen Jonas.

According to Jonas, LAPD and Galpin Ford wanted his clients to pose for a photo opportunity and pay income tax on the truck. The women no longer want the truck after they were told they needed to fill out a 1099 form for the donation, Jonas said Monday.

“You tried to murder the woman, now you’re telling her she can’t have a four-wheel drive, you’re telling her she can’t sell it and you’ve got to be taxed on it?” Jonas said. “How would anyone react to that?”

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James O’Keefe Agrees to Pay $100,000 to Victim of ACORN Sting

Matthew Fleischer — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 18:01:00 +0000

It was the sting that made him a household name, but James O’Keefe is paying for it now. Wonkette reports that the Breitbart protege just agreed to pay $100,000 to former California ACORN employee Juan Carlos Vera–who O’Keefe filmed without consent for his doctored pimps-and-hoes sting operation that helped shut down the community organizing group in 2010. You know the one.

Vera was fired after appearing in O’Keefe’s video, even though it later turned out that O’Keefe’s “investigation” into unethical ACORN activity had been edited to look far worse than it actually was.

From Wonkette:

According to a copy of the deal, obtained late last night by your wonkettes and viewable after the jump, O’Keefe has also agreed to ink an 11-word non-apology apology, that sources close to reality are calling “insincere” and “suuuuuuuch bullshit.”

According to the final 5-page agreement, signed by O’Keefe and his legal counsel Mike Madigan this past Tuesday, the boy detective now publicly “regrets any pain suffered by Mr. Vera or his family.” O’Keefe and his counsel have also consented to fork over the $100,000 within 30 business days of the settlement agreement’s being signed.

Full settlement docs after the jump:

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Dianne Feinstein’s Husband at Center of Current TV Sale Lawsuit

Richard Horgan — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 19:15:06 +0000

An LA-based media consultant is claiming that selling Current TV to Al Jazeera was all his idea. THR Esq. has the eight-page complaint filed Tuesday in California Superior Court.

The allegations hinge on a July 23, 2012 meeting and Power Point presentation. On that summer Monday, John Terenzio claims he met with Current TV board member Richard Blum and laid out how the Qatar-based broadcaster could be a perfect fit. Blum, a billionaire, is married to ~~California state~~ U.S. Senator for California Dianne Feinstein.

Terenzio is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and currently listed as living in Los Angeles with his wife and three children. From his Tri American Productions (TAP Inc.) biography:

Terenzio served as the president of programming and publishing at Broadband Sports, specializing in sports content for new media and television platforms… He has created, developed and produced virtually every type of reality programming, including prime time network news, television and digital sports, and programming in the court and “talk” syndicated genres.

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Founders of VegNews Magazine Embroiled in Nasty Legal Battle

Richard Horgan — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 10:45:29 +0000

San Francisco-based journalist Laura Hooper Beck is night editor for jezebel.com, community manager for vegweb.com, a contributor to VegNews magazine and founder of the blog Vegansaurus! It is those last two strands that have come together unusually this morning in the form of a post on Vegansaurus! titled “Domestic Drama Sends Owners of Vegan Magazine to Court.”

The headline is in reference to Joe Connelly and Colleen Holland, the couple that founded VegNews magazine in 2000 and are now embroiled in a very ugly legal battle. From Beck’s excellent summary of legal briefs filed back and forth in August of 2012 and February of this year, it appears that Connelly is wrongfully trying to claim that the publication is his alone. Or, as Beck puts it, “Something stinks, and for once, it’s not home-brewed kombucha:”

A cross-complaint filed by Colleen on February 7 alleges that she and Joe are now — and have always been — equal partners in the business… In documents and declarations obtained through the Superior Court of California, several close friends, consultants, and advisors who have been present since the inception of VegNews, say they believe Colleen is telling the truth.

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Yahoo Readers Ridicule Disneyland ‘Racist’ White Rabbit Complaint

Richard Horgan — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 09:00:29 +0000

Wading through the full string of reader comments to this particular Yahoo! News item would likely take almost as long as a visit to Disneyland. At press time, the tally for “Black Family Claims Disney’s White Rabbit Character Refused to Touch Their Kids” has passed 20,000 published reactions and is still climbing rapidly.

The Lookout blogger Claudine Zap picked up on FOX San Diego and CBSLA reports and ka-boom; her account of Jason and Amelia Black‘s complaint over allegedly “racist” treatment directed at their kids last August by the person operating the Alice in Wonderland White Rabbit costume is a most-popular read and comments magnet. The family wants the resort to publicly apologize and fire the actor who played the Rabbit. Many readers meanwhile are ridiculing the allegations:

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Anita Busch vs. Michael Ovitz Business Still Lingering

Richard Horgan — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:30:26 +0000

In the spring of 2008, former CAA kingpin Michael Ovitz answered an odd-sounding question in an LA courtroom. It was during the trial of now incarcerated former PI Anthony Pellicano and went like this with defense attorney Chad Hummel, who was representing an LAPD sergeant:

Hummel: Did you ever hire Mr. Pellicano to put a fish on Anita Busch’s car?
Ovitz: Absolutely not.

Five years later, despite that denial, Busch and Ovitz are still legally entangled in a civil lawsuit. Per a THR Esq. update by Eriq Gardner, Ovitz is asking for “sanctions against Busch, summary judgment in the lawsuit on the basis that her claims are time-barred and the right to learn through discovery what else Busch was working on at the time in question.”

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Los Angeles Times Wins Dispute with Photographer

Marcus Vanderberg — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 13:00:04 +0000

After an 18-month dispute with photographer David Strick, the Los Angeles Times was awarded $266,000 by an arbitrator according to court documents obtained by The Wrap:

The case was decided in June, when retired judge Peter D. Lichtman, the arbitrator in the matter, dismissed Strick’s claims.

“Judge Lichtman properly found that the Times was entitled to recover the substantial cost it incurred in defending against Mr. Strick’s meritless lawsuit, and recognized that the conduct of Mr. Strick’s counsel contributed to the high cost of this litigation,” Kelli Sager, who represented the paper in the matter, told TheWrap in a statement. continued…

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OC Weekly Sued for $75 Million by Former Congressional Candidate

Matthew Fleischer — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 17:24:40 +0000

OC Weekly journalist Matt Coker has been named in a $75 million libel lawsuit against the paper by former Orange County congressional candidate Delecia Ann Holt. Holt, incidentally, is serving an 80-month prison sentence on a barrage of felony charges.

From the Weekly:

Holt, a self-styled “Republican with a heart” who is presently an inmate of the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, claims in a handwritten complaint that a series of 2009/2010 Coker news articles about her on the Weekly’s Navel Gazing blog, “defamed, libeled, invaded plaintiff’s privacy, caused the plaintiff emotional distress and physical distress . . . as well as put the physical well being and life of the plaintiff, her child and her other family members in danger of retaliation by other people . . .”

Though her lawsuit does not detail any alleged falsehoods, Holt also accused Coker and the Weekly of being negligent and sadistic because they published “falsehoods” that prompted commenters to leave “malicious and aggressive” responses attached to the reports.

The Weekly‘s lawyer Steve Suskin doesn’t think much of her suit, telling the paper, “Raw indignation is a poor substitute for actual merit in defamation litigation.”

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San Diego Freelancer in the Middle of First Amendment Fight

Richard Horgan — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 09:15:16 +0000

Earlier this year, 48-year-old videographer for-hire James Charles Playford served a couple of days in San Diego jail after being found guilty of obstructing a peace officer. He essentially refused to identify himself to a sheriff’s deputy at a news scene and a minor altercation ensued.

Now, his employer – Connecticut based American News and Information Services Inc. – is tackling on his behalf the broader issue of San Diego press credentials. Per a report in the North County Times, the company has filed a federal lawsuit claiming that ID cards issued to news media by the San Diego Police Department violate the First Amendment and that privately issued credentials should be considered equally valid. Playford’s SDPD pass was rescinded some time ago when a restraining order was filed against him:

To qualify for SDPD credentials, a member of the media must demonstrate a need to regularly cross police or fire lines and must pass a criminal background check, said Detective Gary Hassen, a spokesman for the San Diego Police Department who is in charge of issuing the credential.

Additionally, the applicant’s journalistic outlet must have been in existence for at least six months. He said the agency has issued credentials to bloggers, most notably those who work for Patch.

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TV Director Makes an Offer to Kim Dotcom

Richard Horgan — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 09:00:36 +0000

Although the topic of video piracy is no laughing matter, we have to hand it to writer-director Bruce Leddy. His response to Kim Dotcom’s July 17 open letter in The Hollywood Reporter still managed to find the funny.

Leddy writes that he is more than happy to take up Dotcom on his recent conciliatory offer, with one major proviso:

I’m tired of being a chump and writing and directing stuff for a decent wage when I could just as easily “share” other people’s stuff on the Internet and make huge money off it. So I’ve decided to start selling all your property on eBay, beginning with your pile of luxury cars.

That Mercedes Brabus SV12 alone will easily pay for my kids’ college tuitions. I mean, sure, they don’t technically belong to me. But if I can find a country where they don’t really have rules about that kind of thing yet, I’m going to be living large! Probably change my name to Bruce Web$tarr. Extra “r” for extra RICH! You like it?

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Tribune Company to Finally Emerge From Bankruptcy

Matthew Fleischer — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 12:30:02 +0000

After more than three years, U.S. Bankruptcy judge Kevin Carey has officially signed off on a plan for Tribune Company to emerge from bankruptcy. According to the Chicago Tribune, the media company will soon be in the hands of a conglomerate of senior investors, led by the LA-based investment fund Oaktree Capital Management.

Looks like we won’t have old Sam Zell to pick on anymore…Or won’t we? Apparently, the Tribune Co. legal fireworks aren’t over yet.

From the Chicago Tribune:

Junior creditors led by New York investment fund Aurelius Capital Management have said they plan to appeal the decision issued in Delaware by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey. But few experts expect appeals to gain traction because of the careful way Carey fashioned his confirmation opinion.

Instead, junior creditors will likely shift their attention a federal district court in New York where they are suing 35,000 former Tribune Co. shareholders who cashed out in the company’s 2007 leveraged buyout, certain current and former Tribune Co. directors and officers as well as Sam Zell, the deal’s architect. The litigation could keep the controversy surrounding the litigation alive in the courts for years.

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