Objection! (36 page)

From videotapes of the crime to cuts and bruises
on the victim, evidence too often plays second fiddle to the celebrity factor.

The increased standard of proof is real, not just perceived, and it plays out in case after case and trial after trial. The answer? I believe that additional jury instructions at the back end of the trial from the judge to the jury are absolutely essential, advising them that all defendants are equal under the law and should be considered so during jury deliberations. In addition, more carefully orchestrated jury selection to weed out the starstruck must be implemented. The lawyers in celebrity trials must choose twelve jurors more interested in justice than in dinner with a star.

O U T G U N N I N G T H E S T A T E

The
New York Post
got it right with the two-inch headline MONEY

TALKS on the heels of a 2001 scandal among the rich and famous in the Hamptons of Long Island when the über-wealthy Lizzie Grubman posted bail for running down a group of innocent bystanders outside a trendy nightclub for the East Coast elite. New York City’s hottest young public-relations woman backed her Mercedes SUV into a crowd outside the club after arguing with a bouncer over a parking spot and reportedly calling him “white trash.” Sixteen people were injured, and Grubman was charged with assault and leaving the scene of an accident.

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The poor little rich girl managed to play possum until she could no longer successfully be tested for intoxication. By the time she was located at a friend’s house two hours after the assaults, her lawyer had arrived and advised her not to speak with police. She was later released on just $25,000 bail. At her 2002 trial, she of course got a lenient sentence: in and out of a dormitory-style facility in a few months. Her latest project: starring in a reality show focusing on her glamorous life among Manhattan’s rich and famous.

O. J. Simpson’s Dream Team started a trend in contemporary celebrity trials. How many lawyers does it really take to defend one person? Simpson aside, there is definitely a tendency to hire “teams”

of lawyers to outman the prosecution when there’s a celebrity defendant. In Robert Blake’s case, before the trial even started he’d already been through three fleets of lawyers, including Tom Mesereau, now representing Michael Jackson, as well as Harland Braun, a high-powered and high-ticket criminal lawyer. He went through fleets of lawyers in order to assemble his own Dream Team. Meanwhile, the judge continued to grant delays for the defense so Blake could find just the right lawyer. In other words, one who will do whatever Blake wants.

The prime example of assembling a defense “team” would be Michael Jackson. Jackson paid through the nose to retain two of the highest-profile criminal lawyers in the country—Ben Brafman, of Sean Combs’s acquittal fame, and Mark Geragos. Then, in an erratic move following the formal grand-jury indictment, Jackson fired two of the most sought-after celebrity lawyers around and hired another, Mesereau.

It is well known that in the Kobe Bryant case, the defense team papered the district attorney’s office with countless motions that were spit out of the word processor as quickly as they could be dreamed up. Many of them were pointless, but it took multiple man-hours for the state to respond. There’s no question that money plays a major role in high-profile cases. Celebrities can afford to hire a battery of attorneys and investigators to prolong trials. As the prosecutor’s workload mounts, the defense O B J E C T I O N !

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sits by, happily racking up their billable hours. Trials that normally require three or four days in court mushroom into months or even worse.

With celebrity comes wealth, and wealth buys more bodies at the defense table: investigators, experts, and consultants as well as other key players like videographers, publicists, and Web-site specialists.

Celebrities get the edge in the courtroom not only because of their fame but also because of money—pure and simple. These are just a few examples to make the point that, while everyone should hire the best defense attorney he or she can, clearly, in the aforementioned cases, the goal was to overpower the prosecution. Guess what? It worked.

L I M O V E R S U S P A D D Y W A G O N

( I T ’ S A L L I N H O W

Y O U G E T T H E R E )

The headiest combination ever
forged is fame and fortune. If you have them both, you can apparently get anything and get away with everything. When it comes to interrogating, arresting, booking, and getting court dates for celebrities, what police really need is a social secretary, what with all the scheduling conflicts, special requests, and hair and makeup requirements that come into play.

When most offenders are suspected of a crime, they are located by cop or canine, thrown down on the ground, handcuffed and hauled to jail for book-in, and fingerprinted. Once in custody, defendants are kept in a holding cell until they make bond (on less serious crimes) or wait for a bond hearing, which occurs within seventy-two hours. In contrast, think about what happened when Michael Jackson was “arrested” for multiple counts of alleged child molestation. Jackson’s lawyers negotiated a time convenient for the star to be chauffeured to the police station of Jackson’s choice at the time and date of his choice. He literally got curbside service book-in. He was escorted into the station by his then-lawyer Mark Geragos, allowed to use the bathroom in private, then booked. His 2 4 6

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mug shot is complete with hair and makeup artfully applied (not my style, but hey, I’m not the King of Pop). Nobody else gets that!

And consider this: Celebrities accused of a whole range of offenses, from murder to rape to child molestation, manage to walk free on bail when the average person could never post and be released if faced with the same charges. Stars even get to leave the country after being charged with a crime.
You
want to scoot down to the Caribbean with a child-molestation charge hanging over your head? Fat chance!

But Jackson made it to London after
his
arrest.

Privileged punks have also gotten bond when the average guy would not have. Andrew Luster, the heir to the Max Factor cosmetics fortune, was charged in 2003 on eighty-six counts for drugging, raping, and sodomizing women while they were unconscious. Despite being a clear ongoing threat to the community and having the resources to flee the country, he made bond. But then—uh-oh—he somehow managed to leave the country and ended up in Mexico. As a no-show in court, he was tried “in absentia”—in his absence—after he took off. In February 2003, Luster was sentenced to 124 years in state prison and ordered to pay $1 million in restitution. Duane Chapman, an innovative bounty hunter nicknamed “The Dog,” tracked Luster down and turned him over to the authorities. Finally, he’s back in the United States and in jail, where he belongs.

But it’s not just about celebs getting bond or preferential consideration at bond time. At many court appearances, special arrangements are made for the celebrity. Security is often brought in so no one will

“bother” the star. The court appearance is planned with precision tim-ing. The celebrity is in and out of court with little or no muss or fuss.

Here’s a reality check: Criminal calendars normally last for hours at a time. Hence, the orchestration for celebrities to be ushered in and out of the courthouse at their convenience is quite an ordeal. If this is to become standard operating procedure, the courts really are going to need to hire event planners.

Fame and fortune are at play when there are no consequences for O B J E C T I O N !

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what many judges would call contempt of court. Routinely, I had defendants who did not show up on time for calendar call, and by the end of the calendar. Every single one was placed in bond forfeiture. In other words, they lose the bond they posted and are faced with waiting in jail until their trial date.

Some celebrity defendants don’t even have to show up to court, by agreement with the judge. Kobe Bryant did not have to appear at every court hearing regarding his case. I assure you that other rape defendants across the country must be in court for each and every hearing, motion, or arraignment calendar, or their bonds will be forfeited and they can consider the matter behind bars until trial time. Not so for the stars.

Aside from preferential treatment at book-in or calendar dates, there is the matter of delay in charging. Stars seem to be able to drag out the inevitable until it better suits their schedules. The most blatant example of this in recent memory has been Robert Blake. His wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, was fatally shot on May 4, 2001, a block from the L.A. restaurant where the two had just eaten dinner. Blake’s alibi was widely considered to be completely incredible. When police arrived on the scene, Blake had gunpowder residue on his hands and had made no attempt to save his wife as she lay in his car dying. Their relationship was in great turmoil at the time of her death, and allegedly Blake had tried to hire others to kill Bonny in the past. For well over a year, no one was charged. Had it been you or me, we would have been hustled off to jail in little or no time. To top it all off, Blake didn’t cool his heels in jail waiting for trial, but was out on bond. The last time I saw him, he was outside the courthouse giving an impromptu performance, singing “Over the Rainbow” while strumming a guitar in front of a television camera. In October 2004, my friend Dominick Dunne reported that Blake was deep into trial prep, getting custom-made pinstripe suits to wear in front of the jury!

Likewise, in February 2003, legendary record producer Phil Spector brought home actress Lana Clarkson after the two met one evening at the House of Blues in Los Angeles, where Clarkson worked as a hostess.

The next morning, Spector’s chauffeur reported to police that he’d heard 2 4 8

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gunshots coming from Spector’s house. Inside, Clarkson was found shot to death. It took nearly a year for Spector even to be charged. He immediately pled not guilty and was freed on bail. The list of celebs who enjoy a long delay before charges are ever filed is incredible. It’s almost as if police are afraid to charge them—or maybe they’re just starstruck, too.

J A I L V S . “ T R E A T M E N T ”

Not only does the
system drag its feet in interviewing celebrity suspects, give them special treatment at arrest and book-in, and bend over backward to accommodate them for court appearances, the hand-holding continues even after the trial. Celebrities have the unique good fortune of getting “treatment” when the rest of us would be sentenced to jail. And even when they
are
sentenced to jail, there’s no guarantee it will really happen or that they will be treated equally under the law.

Here’s my evidence:

Diana Ross was arrested on December 30, 2002, after driving the wrong way on a Tucson, Arizona, street. Her speech was slurred, she reeked of alcohol, and she couldn’t write out the alphabet. Ross was arrested for driving under the influence. The singer pleaded no contest to DUI. The court in Tucson, where the drunk driving occurred, agreed to allow Ross to serve her sentence in Greenwich, Connecticut, where she lives. But during her “jail time,” she left on several occasions, had takeout ordered in, and did her nails in the prison’s conference room.

Want more? In January 2004, singer James Brown was arrested and charged with criminal domestic violence for allegedly shoving his wife, Tomi Rae Brown, to the ground and threatening her with a chair.

Police reported that the woman had suffered scratches and bruises to her arms and hip during the altercation and was taken to a hospital in Augusta, Georgia, for treatment. He pleaded no contest and served no jail time. His punishment: He forfeited his $1,087 bond. This wasn’t the singer’s first brush with the law. In 1988, Brown was charged with O B J E C T I O N !

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assaulting his then-wife, Adrienne, but the charges were dropped when she refused to testify against him. He also has settled several lawsuits filed against him that alleged sexual harassment. No matter. Despite protests, in December 2003 the powers that be at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts voted to give Brown a lifetime-achievement award at the center’s annual gala.

While Brown’s recent plea wipes it off the court docket, the scary mug shot of the “hardest-working man in show business” with “hurricane hair” and wearing a scuzzy bathrobe lives on in infamy.

Actor Gary Busey, star of
The Buddy Holly Story,
was charged with misdemeanor spousal battery in December 2001 after his wife, Tiani, called the police to their Malibu home. He got no jail time. In November 2003, television producer Ryan Haddon, wife of actor Christian Slater, was arrested in Las Vegas on a charge of misdemeanor battery domestic violence. Haddon reportedly threw a glass at Slater, cutting him on the head. Slater was taken to the hospital, where he received twenty stitches. Haddon was taken to the Clark County jail, where she was held for a twenty-four-hour mandatory detention period before being released. Don’t think that’s special treatment? Hit somebody on the head with a glass and see if
you
don’t end up with some serious jail time.

In March 2000, disgraced Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding pled not guilty to charges that she hit her boyfriend, Darren Silver, in the face with a hubcap and her fists. Harding could have faced a year in prison and a $5,000 fine. She told officers that she hit Silver in an effort to protect herself, but police say that’s not what the evidence showed. The end result: three days in jail and ten days of community service on a work crew.