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Polanski’s new charge, O.J.’s first week, Bobby Trendy resurfaces, and how to dodge a felony like a Trump.
La Vida Simpson
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It’s only been a week since O.J. Simpson made his grand exit from Lovelock Correctional Center, and he’s already back to living the good life.
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Life just isn’t fair, is it?
Since his release, O.J.’s been pent up at pal Tom Scotto’s palatial pad, minutes outside Vegas - and conveniently right next to a golf course.
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But golfing isn’t all that Simpson’s been up to since getting sprung. On Tuesday, O.J. stopped by the Verizon store with daughter Arnelle to pick up his very first iPhone - and fans flocked:
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Maybe it’s just me, but if I spotted a double murderer trying to work out the kinks in his data plan, I wouldn’t approach him for a quick picture. But the fan later gushed to Radar Online that he didn’t care about Simpson’s crimes in the slightest and that he was “not one to judge.”
Once again, maybe it’s just me, but I’m prone to judge someone who nearly decapitated his ex-wife, but I digress. According to onlookers, O.J. was puzzled as to how to work his new gadget, but his next post-pokey activity would be one he’s all too familiar with.
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After snagging his new phone, Simpson stopped by a Las Vegas hotel for a two-hour autograph session, since O.J. and memorabilia worked so well the first time - but I’m not complaining, I wholeheartedly believe this dumbass is days away from fucking up again, so fingers crossed!
On Wednesday, Simpson signed some more gear, and then hit up a country club where he was overhead trying to stage a paparazzi run-in:
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After another photographer caught wind of O.J.’s plan to issue a scripted “statement” on last week’s Vegas shooting, they interrupted the shot and an angry Simpson made a beeline for his car - which begs the question: Does O.J. have a secret deal worked out with a pap agency?
It wouldn’t be surprising, since we all know he’s desperate to make some cash behind Fred Goldman’s back, and if you remember, last week he had an oddly convenient run-in with a Splash News photographer at a gas station.
But for now, it seems O.J.’s obeying the law… at least to the best of his ability.
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On Thursday, Simpson stopped by a Vegas police station to register with police, and since then he’s been keeping things on the quiet side - although there’s buzz that his best pal Scotto called up The Bunny Ranch to find O.J. “a Nicole Brown look-alike.”
According to ranch owner Dennis Hof, the girls are “anxious” for O.J.’s visit and Scotto is scoping out the establishment “to ensure it’s Juice-worthy.”
I think I just threw up a little, but that reminds me: what ever happened to O.J.’s ex-girlfriend Christie Prody?
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Last I heard she was stealing purses in North Dakota.
Anyways, here are some parting Simpson stories for the week: O.J.’s lawyer Malcom LaVergnetold In Touch that Simpson plans on stopping by Nicole Brown’s grave and binge-watching Netflix, O.J.’s former attorney F. Lee Bailey is broke as hell, Mark Fuhrman’s corpse gave his two cents on all of this, and Nicole Brown’s sister Tanyadoesn’t plan on meeting with Simpson anytime soon.
See ya next week, O.J.!
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He Spoke Too Soon
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Oh, Roman - why are you so dumb?
This past week, convicted rapist Roman Polanski crawled out of whatever tomb he’s been hiding in to comment on his forty-year-old rape case, telling press at a screening of his latest film that it’s “unfortunate” his rape of a 13-year-old girl has overshadowed his cinematic work: “As far as what I did: It’s over. I pleaded guilty. I went to jail. I came back to the United States to do it, people forget about that, or don’t even know.”
There’s one catch Roman, you’re lying.
As I’ve extensively covered on this blog, instead of serving the rest of his measly ninety-day sentence, Polanski fled the country and flung himself into the legal shit-storm he’s been in ever since, so no, he did not serve the time - rather, he ignored the justice system altogether. But the icing on Roman’s stupidity would come only a day after his latest comments.
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On Tuesday, reports surfaced that a former German actress stepped forward with new accusations against Polanski, telling Swiss police that the filmmaker had raped her at his home in Gstaad back in 1972, when she was just fifteen years old.
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The woman, Renate Langer, told authorities that with her parent’s permission, she’d traveled from Munich to Gstaad to visit Polanski, who’d expressed interest in casting her in one of his films. After raping her in his bedroom, Polanski called Renate a month later to apologize and offer her a role in his movie Che? - she accepted on the condition that he’d treat her professionally.
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After flying to Rome for production, Roman attacked her once again. And despite her best efforts to fight back, the director proceeded to rape Langer a second time. For years, she hid the story in fear of how her parents would react, but now that both of her parents have passed away, Renate is attempting to file a criminal complaint, believing Switzerland’s statute of limitations would allow an investigation.
The law surrounding this situation is tricky, unfortunately, so I’m not too hopeful that something will come out of it. However, since the accuser count is now up to four, I’m sure we’re just scratching the surface of Polanski’s crimes and even more victims will step forward over the next year - and one of those charges will eventually stick.
Obligatory:
Yep, don’t forget Harrison Ford signed that petition!
How To Dodge A Felony
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Starring Paris Hilton With A Thesaurus and DonCon Jr.!
The year is 2010. La Lohan is in Lynwood, Wonky is trying to pass off blow as bubblegum, and the Children of the Corn are under federal investigation.
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Don’t remember that last part? Let me bring you up to speed.
A recent report from The New Yorker blew the lid off a seven-year-old case in which ‘Vanks and Donny Jr. were wrapped up in a little criminal mischief over one of their old properties: Trump SoHo.
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As you might recall, the hotel-condominium was announced during the season finale of The Apprentice back in June 2006, and Donald took on his eldest children as extra pairs of eyes to oversee the sparkly new project.
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While the broadcast seemed exciting, it raised the question: How did Donald manage to keep a skyscraper under wraps? And to that, Trump boasted that he went for the permits in a “very low-key fashion” prior to the big reveal, but like everything that comes out of Trump’s mouth, that was a lie.
It quickly turned out the televised announcement was simply a way to pressure The Department of Buildings to grant Donald the permit - the first of which wouldn’t come until three months later in September, and full approval followed in May 2007. Even then, though, controversy continued to tail the building’s development.
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Mob ties, human remains, and protests only delayed construction even further, causing a bitter Don to host a press conference that September, claiming Trump SoHo’s 400 units had already received thousands of applications, and popularity was so high that he was considering another floor to the building: a members-only lounge called SoHi. “Everyone’s invited, Britney Spears will be escorted by O.J. Simpson,” he joked.
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Once again, more lies, but this isn’t where Paris-lite and Fredo pop in - give me a hot second, I like to set the stage for you gossip junkies.
By the time construction wrapped in 2009, rumor had it even Trump was embarrassed by his ties to the building, and was scrambling to find potential buyers to take the mess off his hands.
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No dice.
As New York Magazine eloquently put it: “Trump SoHo, at this point, is bigger than Trump. Like a creeping kudzu, like the villain rising from the bloody bathtub, it keeps coming back.” And that it did.
With the grand opening imminent, Don, Con Jr., and Ivanka rushed to get some positive press. In press junkets and interviews, the three stooges piled lie onto lie, claiming at first 31% of the condos in the building had been snatched up, and later upping the figure to 60%. Paris-lite even bragged to reporters: “We’re in a very fortunate position where we have enough sales and now we are strategically targeting certain buyers.”
Claims phony as Dr. Steven Hoefflin’s handiwork.
In fact, the actual percent of units sold wasn’t even half of that figure, rather, it was a measly 15.8%. Desperate to snag buyers, Paris-lite even ripped a page from her blonde doppelganger and worked a few sultry poses for an ad campaign:
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And even planned a last-ditch cyber sweepstakes:
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Still, nobody was buying.
By 2010, the Trump clan’s mountain of lies was beginning to blow up in their melting faces. That August, as Lilo ditched jail for UCLA Medical Center and Wonky spent the night in a holding cell, a fifteen-plaintiff lawsuit made its way into Manhattan federal court, alleging the Trumps had lied about the hotel-condo’s sales figures and had “fraudulently misrepresented” the project’s value.
Donald fired back that the case was “simply a matter of buyers’ remorse.”
By the following year, a settlement had been reached and the peeved buyers received 90% of their deposits back. 'Vanks, trying to quell her inner Patrick Bateman, responded to the news with a simple: “Business is so strong that we’re delighted to get the units back. It’s a great settlement for everyone.”
But behind the strained smile, trouble was still brewing.
After the suit had first been filed, the Manhattan DA’s office opened a criminal investigation, and prosecutors quickly found enough evidence to support hefty fraud and larceny charges against Paris-lite and her kin, the smoking gun being a series of email exchanges in which Ivanka and Con Jr. plotted the phony numbers they could give prospective buyers, in addition to sharing fears that a reporter might be onto them. In perhaps one of the most incriminating emails, Con Jr. convinced a concerned broker that nobody would ever find out about the false statements, as the only people privy to the scam were members of the email chain or the Trump Organization.
With all this considered, the case seemed like an easy win - even with the interference of the Trump children’s lawyers. But the entrée of one special attorney would send the investigation into limbo, and ultimately turn the tide in Trump’s favor.
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By 2012, a frustrated Don Sr. enlisted the help of his righthand legal man, attorney Marc Kasowitz, and Kasowitz knew what would close the case: money.
After a meeting with Manhattan D.A. Cyrus Vance Jr., the charges against Paris-lite and her brother mysteriously vanished - poof - and by the end of the year, Kasowitz had donated a substantial chunk of cash to Vance’s reelection campaign - in addition to raising thousands more, totaling a whopping $50,000 dollars.
Coincidence? I don’t think so, honey.
Just a jury removed from a felony conviction, it seems Paris-lite and Con Jr. had dodged a massive bullet, and the reasons for their sweet escape seemed all too obvious. I know, I’m teary-eyed at the thought of not being able to see them in prison garb, too, but there’s still a chance they’ll have their moment in the big house!
While the criminal case into Trump SoHo is closed, the hotel-condo and its many scandals might not be a thing of the past quite yet. As I touched upon earlier, the project had some ties to the mob… the Russian mob to be exact.
In December 2007, the Timespublished a profile of Felix Sater, managing director of the Bayrock Group - one of Trump SoHo’s developers. Sater, who’d previously spent time in the pen for assault, had also been wrapped up in a pump-and-dump stock scheme, and claimed to have mob protection. After investigators searched Sater’s storage locker in 1998, coincidentally across the street from the future Trump SoHo site, Sater hightailed it back to Russia, eventually returning to New York where he powwowed with F.B.I. agents for a deal.
Prior to the Times piece, Sater had tried to keep his criminal past under wraps, even threatening the manager of a proposed Trump property in Phoenix that if he didn’t keep his trap shut, Sater would shock his testicles, cut off his legs and leave him “dead in the trunk of his car.” Charming! Days after the profile hit the press, though, Donald would be deposed in a lawsuit and questioned about his knowledge of Sater’s past. Trump would respond that he barely interacted with Sater, rather, he “dealt mostly with Tevfik [Arif],” the Bayrock founder.
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More lies.
In a 2008 deposition, Sater testified that he would often pitch ideas to Trump directly (“just me and him”), and that his relationship with Don Sr. was so close, in fact, that Trump asked him to accompany Paris-lite and Con Jr. on a trip to Moscow in 2006 to scope out deals. Con Jr. would visit Russia six more times over the next two years.
On top of that, by 2010, Sater - who’d been based out of Trump Tower - had already become a senior advisor to Trump - or at least according his snazzy business cards:
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And in 2016, Sater contributed the maximum of $5,400 to Donald’s campaign. Still, Trump’s memory seemed foggy, and during a sit-down with the Associated Press in December 2015, Donald went full Mimi and simply responded that he just didn’t know her him.
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But the proof lies in the pudding, or shall we say the emails, as dozens over the years contain evidence of Sater’s relationship with the Trumps. In one November 2015 exchange, Sater boasted to Donald’s lawyer - Michael Cohen - that building a Trump Tower in Moscow could help elect Trump president:
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It’s too easy, honestly.
And back in February, the Times reported that a week prior to Michael Flynn’s resignation, a sealed proposal was hand-delivered to the former national security adviser’s office, outlining a way for Trump to lift sanctions against Russia.
The document was delivered by Michael Cohen, and Sater helped develop the plan.
But Sater is far from the only shadowy figure whose busted mug keeps popping up everywhere like a Russian Forrest Gump. In 2010, just as Paris-lite and Con Jr. were wrapped up in their own lawsuit, Bayrock found itself in the hot seat after a former finance director - Jody Kriss - sued the company and its principals for a jaw-dropping $1 billion. In the complaint, Kriss claimed that Bayrock was “covertly mob-owned and operated” and “backed by oligarchs and money they stole from the Russian people.”
Uh, duh?
He also alleged that the company engaged in “tax fraud, partnership fraud, human trafficking, child prostitution” and “statutory rape.” Not too surprising, considering the company’s founder - and Sater’s good buddy - Tevfik Arif, a former Soviet official whom Trump did admit to knowing, was detained that same year by Turkish officials on suspicion of helping run a high-priced prostitution ring, linking underage Eastern European models with wealthy businessmen. He’d later be acquitted of the charges in 2012, around the same time Paris-lite and her brother got off scot-free from their own criminal case.
But the trouble with Bayrock doesn’t end there. As recently as 2015, a lawsuit charged Sater and Arif with laundering $250 million in profits from Trump SoHo, amongst other Trump projects, to evade $100 million in state and federal taxes. Initially, the lawsuit didn’t accuse Trump of any direct wrongdoing, but the attorneys behind the suit, Frederick Oberlander and Richard Lerner, are now changing their tune, suggesting that Trump knew exactly what was going down and is just as guilty as his partners.
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Like they say, the company you keep!
But what does this all mean for the Trump clan’s fate in Washington? Well, the buzz is that Robert Mueller is paying particular attention to Trump SoHo in his investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia in last year’s election, since in Vladimir Putin’s world, crime and cash are one in the same - and to crack this case, one has to follow the money trail.
Is your head spinning? Mine too. Don’t worry, next week’s Trump tales will just be Stepford Melania, Ivana’s Frenchy from Rock of Love-esq ramblings, and Javanka’s email madness, so I’ll leave you on a lighthearted note:
Tales From The Crypt Grotto
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It’s time to round up all the latest Hugh Hefner news!
Days after his death, Hef was laid to rest at Westwood in a private ceremony attended by his four children, a few Playboy staffers, and his widow Crystal Harris. There was a bunch of buzz that Crystal would be left with zilch due to an “ironclad” prenup, but reports are now indicating that Hef left his third wife with a 5,900 sq. ft. pad in the Hollywood Hills, in addition to a cool $5 million.
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Not too shabby.
And to the surprise of everyone, apparently Crystal treated her hubby right back. During Hef’s last years, reports claim Crystal joined him at his doctor’s appointments and even masterminded a bunch of game and move nights to keep Hugh’s spirits high, and sources are claiming that the Hefner family has been “immensely grateful” for the support. In a statement to People, Crystal called Hef a “pioneer” and “American hero,” and thanked him for making her “feel loved every single day.”
As for other members of the Playboy family, a reunion is in the works via Facebook to set up a sendoff bash for Hef, while another party is being developed by the mansion’s owner, Hostess heir Daren Metropoulos, who purchased the property for $100 million last year.
Aside from all that, new reports are claiming that Hefner’s health had been spiraling for the past two years due to a nasty back infection, and according to his death certificate, other factors at play included septicemia, cardiac arrest, and a strand of E. coli “highly resistant” to antibiotics.
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And now it’s time for all the bizarre Z-List tributes!
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We’re kicking it off with Bobby Trendy, who stopped by the mansion gates to ramble about himself, Anna Nicole Smithand how he still wishes it was 2007. Also stopping by was another ghost of tabloids past - and a personal favorite of mine - Jessica Hahn, crying and carrying cookies:
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Keep making Long Island proud, Jess.
And it’s rare that Daily Mail delivers something resembling decent journalism, but a former Playboy staffer wrote a piece for the website on her experiences at the mansion in the early aughts - here are some of the juicy takeaways:
- Hef was obsessed with getting Britney Spears to do the cover, and even said: “I want Britney for the cover. I don’t want anyone else. I want Britney or no one!”
- When Ashanti performed at Playboy’s 50th anniversary party, Hef had no idea who she was.
- He also had no idea who P!nk or Jennifer Tilly were, either.
- Parasite Hilton almost brawled with Willa Ford at a mansion party.
- And when Donald Trump tried to score a cover to promote The Apprentice in 2004, Hef refused… but let his staff take the fall, causing Trump to tell Hef that they should be fired: “Hef pretended to be his friend but really didn’t like him at all.”
Jeez, who knew Hollywood’s rapists were so catty with each other!
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Tabloids
Some articles from this week’s issues of People, OK!, Life & Style, In Touch, Globe, National Enquirer, and a cameo from Closer (They had a Dynasty cover story - I couldn’t resist):
People
OK!
Life & Style
In Touch
Globe, National Enquirer & Closer
Random Tidbits
- That time Frank Sinatra told Trumpto go fuck himself.
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- And that time Trumptried to flirt with Brooke Shields.
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- Oh, and that time Trumptried to fightRichard Branson.
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- James Woodsis retiring, claims to have had a career at some point.
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- The Osbournes have a new reality show.
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- The Karate Kidis back.
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- Kirstie Alleygoes full Tom Cruise.
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- Aaron Carteris out of rehab.
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- Ashlee Simpson’s birthday party.
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- Remember Kony 2012?
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- Kim Cattrallis a Post source.
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- AIMis dead, and so are my passive aggressive away messages.
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- Little Richardis done being gay.
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- Winona Ryderhates fame and security tags.
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- Summer Robertsupgrades.
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- Chloe Lattanzihas a Vegas shooter theory, since why not?
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- This is Kelly Ripa’s world, we’re just living in it.
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- Lionel Richiestill can’t parent.
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- Vanessa Minnillois still annoying.
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- Brenda Song and Macaulay Culkinare still an item.
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- Julia Roberts thinks she’s a selfish brat.
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- Tyra Banksis single.
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- The Farrowfamily feud continues.
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- Nikki Blonskyprobably reads this blog.
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- And the TRL reboot is worse than you ever could’ve imagined.
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Finally, I know you’re all probably wondering: What’s your take on Weinstein?
Next week, kids. I need to make sure I have all of the gossip, just for you.
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Have a great week!
