Quick Hits

Sorry about the slow blogging this week. It's summer and I'm swamped... What up with that?

Okay, to the news:

1. General Noriega has filed a cert petition.
2. Paris Hilton starts trial tomorrow in front of Judge Moreno. Steven Binhak and Michael Weinstein represent her.
3. UBS trial next week.
4. Federal JNC interviews for judge and U.S. atty coming up.
5. Palm Beach is moving firearms cases to federal court. (The State Attorney there says it's because the min-mans in federal court are higher than in state court. But there is no min-man for being a felon in possession of a firearm in the federal system.)
6. More on SexyLexus and White & Case.
7. There's lots of mortgage fraud.
8. Boeis tops Wells.
9. AUSA Scott Ray is leaving the office. Going away party next Thurday at Tobacco Road. Good luck to Scott.
10. The Marshals are busy.

The Sun-Sentinel *sucks*

I had a lot to post about tonight -- from Paris to dumb associates to heavy Cuban accents -- but instead I'm going to tell you how stupid the Sun-Sentinel is. That paper, which has always given the Herald a run for its money, had one of the young star reporters in South Florida: Vanessa Blum. And it fired her today.

Why?

Well, the Sun-Sentinel let Vanessa go today because it has partnered up with the Herald and decided that it could simply buy the Herald federal court coverage for its paper. The Herald will use some Sun-Sentinel coverage of local school board stuff for its paper. And on and on. Rumpole made the point about the dying newspaper business here when he was covering the Herald's firing of Susannah Nesmith:

Here's the point with the BBC stuff- if these trends keep up, local news will soon be gone. No one to report on County Commissioners doubling dipping into their expense accounts; no one to wander the hallways of the courthouse at 2PM and write about all the Judges missing; no one to write about the cops accused of misconduct and no one to write about the injustice of trying defendants over and over until the government gets a conviction.

We can function without Susannah Nesmith. We cannot function without the Susannah Nesmith's of the world. It's a scary thought that the free press is fading away not with an assault against the first amendment, but because the morons who made the business decisions for newspapers didn't see five years ago Craigslist was about to cripple their classified ad income.

President Obama recently referred to a quote from the nation's third president, Thomas Jefferson: "If he had the choice between government with newspapers or newspapers without government, he'd choose the latter." (Rumpole, I just cited to you, Obama, and Jefferson to make a point. What's wrong with that picture?)

Now, this is no knock on Jay Weaver and Curt Anderson, who are also friends of the blog, but they can't cover the entire District by themselves. And of course we have the DBR, which is committed to covering the federal courts. But while they are covering a big case in Miami, who will be tending the store in Lauderdale? What about Palm Beach and Ft. Pierce? And Vanessa broke her share of Miami stories as well -- the latest being the sealing issues in the Mutual Benefits case, which everyone is now looking in to.

I understand budgets and the crisis facing the newspaper industry. But what's the point of having a paper if you are giving up your local coverage? The whole reason people buy the Sun-Sentinel is because of reporters like Vanessa. Without that local coverage, why do we need a Ft. Lauderdale paper?

Vanessa will land on her feet -- she's smart, personable and a great reporter. I wonder where the Sun-Sentinel will land if it keeps this up.

UPDATE -- Bob Norman has a list of the others who have been laid off.

D.O.M. canned me

Honestly, I don't know how D.O.M. does this and runs a practice. It's like being Dick Vitale and Coach K for the same game. Anyway, a week of wearing just one hat was nearly more than he could take. And this morning's little joke certainly didn't help. As soon as he saw that, my blogging was done. He was all, "You're totally out of hand," and, "You're not taking blogging seriously," and, "People depend on this," and the whole nine. I know, I know: It's like Stewart firing Colbert for being too silly, but he was pretty mad.

"Did you say you were going to apply to be U.S. Attorney?"

"I said I was thinking about—"

"And you're not going to apply, are you?"

"Of course not, but I'm pretty sure people got that."

"And did you not use my PACER account for a post about Paris Hilton?"

"Sure, but—"

"And did you not ignore all the comments from my readers?"

"Stop crossing me, D. I'm not some government agent," I said. "At least as far as you and Acosta know."

D.O.M. went slackjawed. He had the exact look that Carrie Underwood's boyfriend must have had when he saw what she did to his truck.

"What?" I said. "Too soon?"

Paris to answer questions from The Chief's witness chair?

The media are giddy over poor Paris' deposition in connection with Goldberg v. Paris Hilton Entertainment, Inc., a case pending before The Chief. Tew Cardenas represents the receiver for a local company that invested in a movie Paris was in but allegedly did not do enough to promote. Judging from some of the excerpts, I don't really know what they expected her to do. I can't even tell from her answers whether the questions that presumably instigated these were asked by her lawyers or the receiver's:

"Any chance I got, any red carpet, any press, if I was doing something for another product ... I would just bring it up, 'Oh, my new sorority film, it's going to be sexy, it's going to be really hot girls'—like I really, you know, did my best."

About her role as an executive producer:

"I'm not sure what a producer does, but—I don't know, help get cool people in the cast."

And the quote that everyone is jumping on, in response to who paid her cell phone bill:

"I don't know. I'm assuming, like, whoever pays my bills. I never ask about that stuff."

Seems like she's her own worst enemy, doesn't it? I mean, look at her—she's wearing heels on South Beach, and that hipster she's with is too self-involved to let her know that just isn't safe.

Even though this is being reported all over the Internet, only the Associated Press appears to have done original reporting, so these quotes are all we have of her deposition. But SDFla Blog doesn't just pilfer other people's news. We look into these important matters to put our own unique spin on them. (For this, we use D.O.M.'s PACER account.) Here it is:

Apparently, it's going to be a bench trial, if it comes to that. Can you just imagine what this will be like for The Chief? Or for this poor Paris creature? Incidentally, I love that The Chief denies Paris Hilton Entertainment's motion to seal certain documents with this flourish of rhetorical questions:

Many of the documents in Exhibit 1 are not financial records. For example, what is the need to file under seal the resume of CPA David Nolte, the list of his appearances in other court proceedings and his publications? Certainly those items need not be filed under seal. Also, how do the parties intend to proceed to trial and discuss the financial concepts in this case? Will it not be done in an open courtroom? If so, then why should it be sealed now?

That's basically the entire order. Classic stuff. I mean, you can almost hear his voice, can't you?

Paris in Miami

Paris Hilton has been sued in Miami federal court for not promoting a movie she was in, National Lampoon's Pledge This . The case, available here, landed before Judge Martinez. Here's the Herald article on the case. From the intro:

As if starring in the flop flick National Lampoon's PledgeThis wasn't bad enough, socialite Paris Hilton now has been sued for refusing to promote the film when it was released.
Hilton's breach of contract cost the producers of the film ''lost revenue and profits,'' according to the suit, filed in Miami federal court Tuesday.
A call to Hilton's Los Angeles attorney wasn't immediately returned.
Fort Lauderdale lawyer Michael I. Goldberg, a court-appointed receiver of the film's production company -- The Entertainment Group Fund -- filed the suit against Hilton and her company, Paris Hilton Entertainment.
The Entertainment Group Fund is an affiliate of Worldwide Entertainment Group, a one-time concert promoter that now stands accused of fleecing $300 million from investors.
Entertainment Group paid Hilton $1 million to star in Pledge This, filmed in South Florida.

This should be fun.

Maybe I'm a sucker, but...

... I feel bad for Paris Hilton.

If she wasn't a celebrity, she wouldn't be treated this way. She'd be on house arrest right now and that would be it. She probably wouldn't have even gotten the 45 day sentence in the first place (for driving with a suspended license).

I actually think the fight between the judge and the jail as to who controls release dates and other prison decisions is very interesting. Most would think that of course the judge trumps the jail, but criminal practitioners know that judges oftentimes defer to jailors and marshals even though I believe that judges would and should win if a true showdown occurred.

Here's a prior post about a judge not backing down to the jail in a case that I was involved with.