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The National Enquirer is reporting that John Edwards is about to be indicted by a federal grand jury. Edwards has been under investigation by the Grand Jury for alleged misuse of campaign finances since April 2009.

Edwards, who has been in the media for his sexual scandal involving his mistress Rielle Hunter, is said to have illegally paid Hunter using campaign funds. Read Full Story

SEATTLE, WA – Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna filed suit against California Corporation, DirecTV over the company’s ‘unconscionable business practices.’ The AG’s office recieved hundreds of complaints this year alone. In fact, the number of complaints were ‘off the chart’ – 355 complaints so far this year.

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Customers respond to an ad saying that they can get 150 channels for 29.99 per month for 12 months. But in order to get this price customers must mail in a rebate form right away (within 60 days). If they don’t, then they will be charged a higher price. The contract with DirecTV is for 2 years. If customers cancel before 24 month period they get slapped with a $480 cancellation fee.

McKenna says that the terms and conditions are in the ads but you’d need a magnifying glass to read them because they are buried in the fine print at the bottom of the page.

Assistant Attorney General Paula Selis has been preparing this case for more than a year. She says you only get that $29.99 price if you mail in for a rebate, and only if you do it right away. But when customers miss the 60-day deadline she says that people lose the right to do that at all. If they don’t do it in 60 days then they don’t get the rebate price plus they they get the higher price for the full 24 months of their contract.

McKenna says that this is what they call unconscionable business practices, where you’re not treating your customers fairly, adding that “The contract is so one-sided that it shouldn’t be permitted under the law.”

The Attorney General wants to hear from DirecTV customers who are unaware that they could file a claim with the AG’s office. Customers can learn more about filing a complaint from their website: http://www.atg.wa.gov/FileAComplaint.aspx

Readers can view the court documents from this link: download the PDF

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Robert Halderman’s lawyer, Gerald Shargel, in an interview on CBS “The Early Show” yesterday, said David Letterman was offered a $2 million deal for first rights to a “screenplay” by his client, Robert Halderman. Shargel said it was a business transaction, the way Hollywood works, not extortion.

Gerald Shargel, attorney for Robert Joe Halderman. (AP Photo/ Louis Lanzano)

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Documents filed by Halderman’s lawyer claim David Letterman was having an affair with his former personal assistant, Stephanie Birkitt, much more recently than Letterman’s rep said.

The legal papers filed by the defense state that Robert Halderman confronted Stephanie Birkitt in December 2008 with evidence of the affair and she promised to end it. But Gerald Shargel, Halderman’s lawyer, claims the relationship continued “unabated” into this past summer.

Letterman’s rep has said the affair ended before Letterman’s marriage in March. Letterman came forward with the alleged extortion plot in early September.

Letterman’s attorney refused to say when the talk show host broke off his affair with Birkitt. Halderman’s lawyer did not elaborate about the sexual relationship and said he was looking forward to cross examining Letterman.

Shargel asked the judge to dismiss the extortion case, on grounds authorities were swept up in “the sensationalism surrounding the indictment” and the grand jury didn’t have enough evidence to target Halderman.

The lawyer claims the $2 million demand was “a pure commercial transaction” over a screenplay.

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Studio City resident, Steven Krell, a 61 year old ex-accountant and Los Angeles lawyer, who pleaded no contest to state grand theft charges in 2008, was sentenced on Monday to probation and house arrest. Krell was sentenced for filing federal false tax returns after embezzling nearly $1.5 million from two of his clients, including an elderly woman with dementia.

Krell, a former partner in the Los Angeles firm of Green, Hasson and Janks, pleaded guilty in June. He told U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson he used the stolen money for his own use and lied to the government.

Krell admitted in his plea agreement that he embezzled $1,476,900 from the elderly woman, her trust and a physician starting in 1997 and continuing through 2003, says Michael Moriarty of the Internal Revenue Service.

The Daily News Wire reports that to accomplish his scheme, Krell had signature authority over bank accounts belonging to the trust and the woman, facilitating withdrawals, according to court papers. In the second case, Krell falsely told the doctor he was investing his funds.

Anderson sentenced Krell on Monday in downtown Los Angeles to three years of probation, including 30 hours of community service per month and eight months of house arrest, Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Rochmes said.

Krell’s attorney, Michael Proctor, told the court his client had already paid about $500,000 in restitution.

In February 2008, Krell was sentenced in Los Angeles Superior Court to seven years and four months behind bars for the same underlying conduct – grand theft.

The judge stayed the prison term on the condition that Krell comply with the terms of his probation and continue long-term psychiatric treatment after he made “significant” restitution payments, according to the District Attorney’s Office. Krell also served less than a year in county jail and was placed on supervised release for seven years.

In the state case, Krell, who was also once a licensed attorney, admitted helping himself to nearly $1 million from the trust of a 90-year-old woman, who was mentally incapacitated, and looting about $400,000 from the physician’s account he was managing.

As part of his plea, Krell agreed to file amended tax returns, reflecting $514,125 in illegally obtained proceeds, Moriarty said. In addition to the tax due, Krell is liable for the fraud penalty, which amounts to 75 percent of the tax due on the proceeds he embezzled.

The thefts were discovered in 2003 after a business manager became suspicious when he learned Krell was staying in expensive suites in Las Vegas and gambling at high-roller tables.

Rochmes said Monday’s sentence would have no effect on Krell’s stayed sentence for grand theft since those crimes were addressed in 2008, and the current federal case involves a separate issue.

The Daily News Wire contributed to ths story.

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HOUSTON, TX – John O’Quinn, a prominent Houston truck accident attorney,  was killed Thurday morning around 8:00 am, Oct 29, 2009 when his Chevy Suburban SUV struck a tree along the Allen Parkway in Houston, TX. There was also a second person in the SUV at the time who was also killed. It is not clear whether O’Quinn was the driver or not.

Houston truck accident attorney, John O'Quinn, killed in SUV crash on Allen Parkway

The SUV  was apparently travelling westbound in the 2000 block of the Allen Parkway when it skidded out of control and crashed. The Chevy  Suburban jumped two curbs before crashing head-on into a tree on the service road to the westbound Allen Parkway.

An Eyewitness  reported , “I was one of the people this suburban cut off… I was going about 50 and the suburban passed me like I was sitting still. He had to have been doing 80 minimum.  Wet roads going 80+ on the curviest part of allen parkway.  I saw him hit the curb because he couldn’t recover from his triple lane change.  I was amazed there was no oncoming traffic.”

Read full story at TruckAccidents360

Carly Simon Sues Starbucks

Carly Simon has hired big time lawyer, David Boies, in order to sue coffee magnate Starbucks for non promotion of her latest 2007 album This Kind of Love on their Hear Music label. The New York Times reports Simon claims Starbucks failed to properly promote her album as promised.

Simon blames Starbucks’ mismanagement for the record’s weak sales (which total 124,000 copies), claiming the company reneged on promises to prominently feature the record in stores and stock it in the thousands of Starbucks across the country.

According to Rock & Roll Daily five days before This Kind of Love was released on April 29th, 2008, Starbucks announced that they were “refining their entertainment strategy” and placed Hear Music, which counts Paul McCartney’s Memory Almost Full amongst its most successful releases, under the control of Concord Music Group, Rolling Stone reported last year. Simon believes that move resulted in the lack of promotion for This Kind of Love, an album that Simon had hoped would be successful enough that she could stop recording, the singer told the New York Times.

However, due to the album’s failure, Simon has been forced to continue her career, and now she’s struggling to find and pay producers in addition to other financial woes stemming from losses in the stock market and real estate troubles.

Simon also states that  Starbucks initially promised an advance of $750,000 to $1 million for the album, but after the contract was drawn up that figure was scaled back to $575,000. Simon says she fronted $100,000 to record This Kind, and alleges that she didn’t even receive the entirety of that advance. According to the New York Times, Simon is seeking between $5 and $10 million for Starbucks’ “concealment of material facts,” “tortious interference” and “unlawful, unfair and fraudulent business practices.”

According to Kate Gosselin’s lawyer, Marty Singer, Jon Gosselin secretly withdrew $200,000 from Kate’s bank account without her knowledge. According to TMZ,  Singer, wrote a letter this past Friday accusing Jon Gosselin and his lawyer of fraud and contempt.

Jon Gosselin empties Kate's bank account of $200K

TMZ obtained a copy of the letter in which Singer expresses outrage that Jon secretly raided Jon and Kate’s money market account “of hundreds of thousands of dollars,” leaving only about $1,000. Singer says the withdrawal is not only “outrageous,” it directly violates the Arbitration Award in the divorce which requires both parties to agree before any money is withdrawn. Read the letter.

Kate blasts Jon on “Today” this morning, for clearing $230,000 out of the couple’s joint bank account: “You’ve left your children and their mother unable to pay for the roof over their head. It’s unacceptable.”

Singer says the withdrawal of funds is fraudulent and contemptible and claims both Jon and his lawyer, Mark Heller, are hypocrites, after they went on Larry King’s show and claimed family values (not money) was the important thing.

Singer says Heller has done this before, citing a New York Supreme Court decision which says Heller directed one of his clients in a divorce to “withdraw everything that’s in the bank” so the money could be used to pay his fee.

Singer also goes after Heller, stating the New York Supreme Court which “addressed charges that you violated ‘thirty-eight counts alleging multiple violations of the disciplinary rules,’ and charges that you ‘had engaged in a pattern of misconduct involving misrepresentations, deceit, abusive treatment of clients, fee gouging, neglect and willful failure to return unearned retainers to his clients’ in matters which involved your ‘mishandling of the matters of twelve separate clients.’” The letter goes on to claim Heller admitted to engaging in “professional misconduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation.”

Kate Gosselin has filed legal papers in a Pennsylvania court this morning to force her estranged hubby Jon Gosselin to return the $230,000 he took out of their joint bank account and to have him cited for contempt for good measure.

Kate claims Jon raided their joint account, leaving her with only $1,000.

Kate’s lawyer, Mark Momjian, tells TMZ he filed the papers this morning and noted to the judge that Jon allegedly violated an order prohibiting him from taking anything out of the account without Kate’s sign-off.

Momjian claims Jon and his lawyer, Mark Heller, have harassed Kate with frivolous legal maneuvers and wants the judge to nail her estranged hubby with financial sanctions.

Heller, who is not a member of the Pennsylvania bar, is asking the judge for special permission to rep Jon in this case. Momjian says he filed papers opposing that move, on grounds Heller effectively lied to the court by failing to mention as he’s required to do that he was suspended by the New York bar for a variety of misdeeds.

Read more: http://www.tmz.com/#ixzz0T57oTFU5

48-year-old Michael David Barrett was arrested at Chicago O’Hare International Airport last night in the connection with the Erin Andrews Peeping Tom case. Annrews, a reporter for ESPN, was secretly videotaped several months ago walking around naked in several hotel rooms. The suspect has now been charged with the federal crime of felony stalking.

According to the FBI, Barrett allegedly stalked Erin “with the intent to harass, to place under surveillance with intent to harass and intimidate, and to cause substantial emotional distress to a person in another state.”

The videotapes surfaced in July. At least six clips showed Erin walking around two different hotel rooms in the nude.

Andrews’ lawyer, Marshall Grossman from the law firm Bingham & McCutchen, told TMZ that Barrett allegedly contacted hotels in the various venues “where Andrews was working in order to locate her and her room number, and some of the hotels revealed that information, permitting him to target her.” Grossman says Barrett would remove the peepholes from the doors or as the complaint states, “hacked off” and inserted tiny camera devices to secretly film her.

Someone tried to sell the clips to TMZ, but they refused to buy or air them because they were an obvious invasion of Erin’s privacy. The federal complaint notes that the videos were offered for sale to TMZ.com through his email account.

The complaint says Andrews was so upset when the tapes began to circulate elsewhere she was “having trouble breathing and felt sick all of the time.” The complaint adds, “She was concerned there might be more video and wanted to vomit just thinking about it.”

TMZ contributed to this story.

David Letterman Extorted for $2 Million

Robert “Joe” Halderman, a well known CBS producer for “48 Hours”, was arrested outside CBS headquarters in NYC for attempted grand larceny after trying to deposit a $2 million check (the amount he tried to extort from Letterman).

Until recently Halderman was living with Stephanie Birkitt, Letterman’s former assistant.

TMZ reports that Halderman had a relationship with Stephanie Birkitt and lived with her, but says they had broken up “recently.”

“We do not know who ended the relationship, but Halderman allegedly was in possession of Birkitt’s diary, correspondence and photos which he says incriminated Letterman.”

“People connected with the network tell us Letterman did have a relationship with Birkitt, but the word is that it ended before Letterman had his baby in 2003,” TMZ said.

According to TMZ Manhattan D.A. played the investigation close to the vest and people inside the building were baffled when the highly-respected producer was cuffed and hauled off in the David Letterman extortion case.

Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said three meetings were held between Halderman and Letterman’s lawyers at the Essex House. Letterman was not at any of the meetings. During the 3rd meeting, the check for $ 2 million was turned over to Halderman.

Morgenthau says Letterman’s lawyer wore a wire and the last two meetings were audio taped.

Halderman deposited the check which was designed to bounce the next morning and was then arrested.

Dan Rather Lawsuit vs CBS dismissed

Looks like Dan Rather’s lawsuit against CBS has come to an end.

According to Reuters Rather’s lawsuit against CBS  in which Rather claimed he was made a scapegoat in a scandal over a 2004 report on then-President George W. Bush’s military record, was dismissed by a New York state appeals court on Tuesday.

The ruling was made on Tuesday by a panel of judges of the New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division who said Rather’s $70 million complaint should be dismissed in its entirety and that a lower court erred in denying CBS’s motion to throw out the lawsuit.

Rather sued CBS, parent of the CBS television network, Viacom and others in September 2007, claiming he had been made a scapegoat to “pacify the White House.” CBS was part of Viacom until the companies split in 2006.

Rather claimed in his lawsuit that CBS breached his contract by not giving him enough on-air assignments after he was removed as anchor of the “CBS Evening News” in March 2005.

The appeals court ruled he failed to sufficiently support his claim that he lost business opportunities due to CBS’s failure to release him to seek other employment.

Looks like CBS lawyers did their job.