Arrest Warrant issued for Lindsay Lohan

Apparently, Los Angeles judge Marsha Revel has had it with Lindsay Lohan's reasoning of volcanic ash and missing passports as excuses for missing mandatory court dates. The judge has issued an arrest warrant for Lohan this morning after the actress evaded a court date regarding her parole for a drunk driving offense by staying in Europe. Much more romantic than the average criminal hiding out in their mom's house.

Prosecutors are most likely pleased with this turn of events since they've been frustrated by Revel's lackadaisical attitude toward Lohan in the past, overlooking minor violations in favor of a 'everybody deserves a second chance' ruling.

After hearing reason after reason regarding why Lohan couldn't make a court date she was well-aware of in advance, Revel said, "There is no valid excuse [for Lohan not being here], If she wanted to be here, she could've been here. She could've come two days early from Cannes. She has a history of not keeping scheduled appointments. She has to take this seriously. I've warned her before."

While policemen with packs of dogs won't be roaming the streets looking for Lohan, a sheriff says the arrest warrant means that if an officer recognizes her, she should be arrested on site. This should be an exciting day at LAX when she finally decides to grace L.A with her presence.

Lohan is now facing much stricter observation, including an alcohol-intake monitoring bracelet and drug testing. Since Lohan's dropped any guise of maintaining sobriety, this will suck to her.

Her lawyer's defense is that most of the time, Lohan is in compliance with her parole. Dude. Please. The deal with parole is that ALL THE TIME you have to follow the rules. That's the dumbest excuse ever.



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Chef's Alleged Murder-for-Hire Plot Thickens

He's charged with attempting to kill his wife, Jennifer Campbell, and police say he may have wanted to commit suicide after she died.

CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy reported on "The Early Show" Tuesday Cruz pleaded not guilty to murder-for-hire charges.

If convicted, Cruz could face life in prison.

Los Angeles deputy district attorney Joseph Markus said, "The first count is attempted murder. It's a willful deliberate and pre-meditated attempted murder and count two is solicitation of murder."

The former TV chef who hosted "Calorie Commando" was arrested last Thursday for allegedly trying to hire at least two homeless hit men, reportedly offering to pay them $1,000 each to kill his wife.

According to a video acquired by the gossip website TMZ.com, one man said, "This guy comes up to me and says I got a job, and I say what job and he says, 'Dirty deeds done dirt cheap, and it pays a grand.'"

However, Tracy reported, a source close to the case says Cruz has talked to his wife since his arrest, and that there is more to this than meets the eye, and the couple is still very much in love. Another source tells CBS News that Campbell has been despondent for years over the couple's inability to have children. Whether there is any link between that and the alleged plot is unknown.

TMZ.com reports Santa Monica police and L.A. County District Attorney sources say Cruz was trying to honor his wife's wishes to end her life. The site reports Campbell ascribes to the Roman Catholic belief that suicide is a mortal sin. The site reports he then planned on killing himself.

Cruz is now being held on $2 million bail. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for June 23.

CBS Legal Analyst Lisa Bloom said on "The Early Show" Tuesday that reports that the alleged murder-for-hire plot was actually part of a murder-suicide pact isn't a defense. Rather, she said, it's more of a possible motive for prosecution.

She said, "It doesn't really help the defense to have some kind of explanation for why you would want to commit a murder."

Bloom continued, "If he solicited these homeless men for any reason to take the life of his wife, that's going to be attempted murder and solicitation, which is exactly what he's charged with. Now, the only way the defense could possibly use that as I see it is some kind of a diminished capacity: He was so distraught, he was so upset that he couldn't form premeditation or first-degree murder. Might knock down to second-degree murder. But I think that's a stretch."

"Early Show" co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez pointed out the homeless men who say he solicited them for murder might not be the most credible witnesses.

But Bloom said the evidence is what will talk in this case.

"I think (the recorded evidence is) absolutely critical for law enforcement," Bloom said. "Of course the defense is going to attack the two witnesses and say they're not credible, perhaps mental issues, perhaps they're motivated by money -- giving an interview to TMZ. But, look, if they have a recording of the chef talking to these homeless men and soliciting them for murder, that recording is going to be key evidence in the case. I think that's the real question here is what does he say on the wire."

Bloom has covered several hit man cases, and said it's common for people looking to kill to go to people with a criminal history, or have nothing to lose.

She said selecting homeless men "makes sense in that context."

Bloom added, "Keep in mind if you do hire somebody like this, then you can attack their credibility. So it makes sense from sort of a plotting point of view. Horrendous, though, no matter how you look at it."


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Biane hired LA law firm before testifying to grand jury

San Bernardino County Supervisor Paul Biane retained a criminal defense attorney last fall to advise him before he testified in front of a grand jury, the supervisor said Thursday.

Biane's campaign finance documents filed Monday for the period between July 1, 2009 to Dec. 31, 2009 show two payments totaling about $50,000 to the Los Angeles law firm of Corbin, Fitzgerald and Athey. The firm specializes in white-collar criminal defense and business litigation, according to its Web site.

Last August, the district attorney's office served subpoenas to top county officials, including supervisors. Officials were called to appear before a grand jury, starting in September.
"I don't believe anyone should testify in any legal proceeding without seeking the advice of counsel," Biane said in a statement. "So that's what I did. It's as simple as that."

A month before issuing the subpoenas, the district attorney's office announced that it was looking into the county's efforts to develop a 1,200-acre piece of land in Rancho Cucamonga and a $102 million lawsuit settlement in 2006 with Colonies Partners.

Last month, the district attorney's office revealed that it had sought a legal opinion from the Fair Political Practices Commission over a trip that Biane took in September 2008.

According to Biane's campaign finance records, he reimbursed two businessmen associated with Colonies for a flight to Virginia on a private jet and for a golfing trip that same weekend.

The state watchdog agency is being asked to examine whether Biane violated disclosure laws and properly reported the gifts he received.


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Self-help guru in court on manslaughter charges

Self-help guru James Arthur Ray says it was all a tragic accident when his followers began collapsing one by one in a sweat lodge at his retreat, with three of them dying. As unfortunate as the ordeal was, he says the participants knew about the risks the ceremony presented.

Prosecutors say it's a blatant case of manslaughter by a man who recklessly crammed dozens of people in a 400-square-foot sweat lodge and chided them for wanting to leave, even as people were vomiting, getting burned by hot rocks and lying lifeless on the ground.

The two sides will be on display in coming months now that prosecutors have charged Ray with manslaughter in a case that could send him to prison for more than 35 years. The 52-year-old Ray said nothing during his first court appearance Thursday, and his lawyer entered a not guilty plea.

The prospect of a conviction against Ray will depend on whether jurors view the episode as an accident or a criminal act in which he recklessly caused the deaths of the victims, the definition of manslaughter in Arizona.

Despite the shocking details that have emerged from that night in the sweat lodge, legal experts say prosecutors won't have an easy time landing a conviction.

Ray's strongest defense will be that the participants were made aware of the risks the ceremony presented, including extreme temperatures in a small space and the possibility of injury or death, and voluntarily went in, criminal defense attorneys said.

But that won't necessarily put Ray in the clear.

"Even though they assumed risks, that doesn't necessarily take the defendant off the hook," said Roy Black, a Miami defense attorney whose clients have included Rush Limbaugh and William Kennedy Smith. "He has an obligation to people. He's the one leading the program, he has a responsibility to make sure it's run safely."



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Sweat Lodge Deaths Not Criminal, Guru’s Lawyer Says

LOS ANGELES — A lawyer for the New Age guru who led a sweat lodge ceremony in Arizona that left three people dead said Wednesday that the deaths were a “tragedy” and an “accident,” but should not be considered a crime.In letters last month and last week to prosecutors, the lawyer for the guru, James A. Ray, who led the Oct. 8 ceremony at the Angel Valley Spiritual Retreat Center in Sedona, Ariz., sought to erase perceptions that Mr. Ray had stopped people from leaving and had sat by while people died.

“Mr. Ray and his team relied on Angel Valley to provide a safe environment, warned people of the risks, did not force people to participate, did not prevent them from leaving, and did everything they could to prepare for any problems and to assist when problems arose,” the lawyer, Luis Li, and two colleagues wrote in the Jan. 4 letter.

The letter added, “The idea perpetrated by the media that Mr. Ray was somehow intentionally callous about the victims of this tragedy is profoundly wrong and hurtful.”

The “spiritual warrior” retreat led by Mr. Ray included a two-hour sweat lodge ceremony during which hot rocks were placed inside a tent to produce a sweltering environment intended to cleanse or renew the soul. Of the 55 people inside, 3 died, and 20 others were treated for heat-related injuries.

In an interview, Mr. Li did not make Mr. Ray available, saying the letters were his comment.

“It’s a tragedy, it’s an accident but it is not a crime,” Mr. Li said.

Although Mr. Ray and his team have remained largely silent, the letters from his lawyers — a 22-page one dated Dec. 1 and a six-page document sent Jan. 4 — expressed concern that “recent media stories” had cast Mr. Ray in unfavorable terms at a time when prosecutors were reviewing the case. Mr. Li released the letters to the news media on Wednesday.

Mr. Li said it appeared the Yavapai County attorney was considering a charge of criminally negligent homicide, essentially manslaughter. The attorney, Sheila Polk, through an assistant, declined to comment.

Some ceremony participants have said in police reports and in interviews with reporters that Mr. Ray and his staff members did little to help people in obvious distress during the ceremony.

But Mr. Li said that the witness statements were incomplete or taken out of context and that Mr. Ray had provided the help he could. Mr. Li said that some of the statements had come from witnesses who were planning to seek a monetary settlement from Mr. Ray’s company, James Ray International.

The letters concede that Mr. Ray sought to encourage people through challenging exercises, including a “vision quest” hike in the mountains before the sweat lodge. The participants all signed releases that stated death was a possibility, Mr. Li said.

But Mr. Li cast many of the activities as benign, saying they were like the games and role-playing found in many corporate retreats. The documents assert that Mr. Ray adapted much of his approach from his years as an “internal trainer” with AT&T.

“This was a five-day retreat, not a cult,” Mr. Li said.

The letters said people interviewed by Mr. Ray’s legal team had characterized Mr. Ray as acting something like a coach during the event. One participant recalled him telling people: “Come on you can do it. You are better than this.” Another compared Mr. Ray’s urgings to that of a personal trainer demanding “one more rep,” repetition, during a workout. Drinks were available outside the tent, Mr. Li said.


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Victim in Roman Polanski rape case expected to take new legal step on his behalf

In the 33 years since she accused Roman Polanski of rape, Samantha Geimer has publicly forgiven the acclaimed director, accused the American justice system of mistreating him and urged a dismissal of his still pending criminal case.

On Friday, Geimer is expected to take yet another step on Polanski’s behalf – asking that a Los Angeles court force U.S. authorities to abandon their ongoing attempt to extradite the filmmaker from Switzerland.

In papers served on Polanski’s lawyers Wednesday and expected to be filed in Superior Court this morning, Geimer’s lawyer contends that the L.A. County district attorney’s office violated the state's victims rights statute by not consulting with her prior to making the extradition request.

Now a married mother living in Hawaii, Geimer was 13 when she told authorities Polanski raped and sodomized her during a photo shoot at Jack Nicholson’s house.

Geimer's attorney, Lawrence Silver, wrote that at a Friday hearing he planned to cite Marsy’s Law – a 2008 statute passed by ballot initiative – that specifically guarantees crime victims a number of rights, including the right “to reasonable notice of and to reasonably confer with the prosecuting agency, upon request, regarding ... the determination whether to extradite the defendant.”
The attorney wrote that in a July letter to the deputy district attorney handling the case, he made clear that Geimer wanted to meet with prosecutors and planned to “exercise every right that she may have under the Victim’s Bill of Rights.”

No one from the district attorney’s office contacted Geimer – whose pro-Polanski feelings were widely known – at that time or in September when the director was arrested in Zurich on a three-decades-old arrest warrant, according to the papers.

Prosecutors later submitted a formal extradition request to Swiss authorities, and the director is being held under house arrest pending a decision by the courts there.

“The failure to give notice to and to confer prior to a determination to extradite the defendant ... is a violation to the California Constitution,” Silver wrote.

A spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office said Wednesday that the office had not yet received Geimer’s filing and could not comment.

Geimer began advocating for Polanski after reaching a settlement to her civil suit against him for sexual assault and other claims. Under the terms of the confidential 1993 agreement, he agreed to pay her at least $500,000.

Judge Peter Espinoza, the supervising judge of the Superior Court’s criminal division, will hear arguments at Friday’s proceeding concerning Polanski’s request to be sentenced in absentia. A state appellate court proposed such a sentencing last month as a way to air the filmmaker’s claims of judicial and prosecutorial misconduct in the original handling of the case without requiring Polanski to return to the U.S.

Prosecutors have opposed the measure, saying it amounts to letting a fugitive dictate court proceedings. In her papers, Geimer said she favored sentencing in absentia.

It was the desire of Geimer’s parents to spare her the ordeal of testifying at a public trial that led to a plea deal regarded then and now as exceptionally favorable to Polanski. He agreed to plead guilty to a single count of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor – a statutory rape charge – and prosecutors said they would drop rape, sodomy, oral copulation and other counts at sentencing.

That proceeding did not happen because Polanski fled to Europe. His lawyers contend he left because the trial judge reneged on an agreement to count the 42 days the director had spent in prison for diagnostic testing as his entire sentence


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Shepard Fairey to face criminal investigation in Associated Press case

A judge in New York revealed today that artist Shepard Fairey is facing a criminal investigation in connection with his admitted misconduct in the ongoing legal case with the Associated Press, according to reports.

Alvin K. Hellerstein, a federal district judge, reportedly made the revelation today as part of a hearing where lawyers for Fairey and the AP were present.

A spokesman for the AP said in a statement issued this evening that the news organization has received a grand jury subpoena related to Fairey's misconduct during the case.

A lawyer representing Fairey did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In October, the L.A. artist admitted that he knowingly submitted false images and deleted others during the case in an attempt to conceal the fact that the AP had correctly identified the photo that Fairey had used as a reference for his "Hope" poster of then-Sen. Barack Obama.

In February, the AP claimed that Fairey violated copyright laws when he used one of its images as the basis for the poster.  In response, the artist filed a lawsuit against the AP, claiming that he was protected under fair use.

At the time, Fairey claimed that he used a different photo as the inspiration for his poster. He has since admitted that the AP is correct about which photo he used.

Following today's hearing, the AP published a report stating that the judge revealed the grand jury probe in a handwritten note denying a request by a Fairey attorney that a hearing relating to a copyright lawsuit be closed.


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