The Jodi Arias trial isn’t even over, but Lifetime is already planning a film about it. Accused of murdering ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander by shooting him, stabbing him 29 times and slitting his throat, Arias has claimed self-defense. Filled with explosive testimony, it’s a case that has gripped the nation as Jodi Arias , 32, faces possible death by lethal injection if found guilty of first-degree murder. Not surprisingly, the network renowned for ripped from the headlines movies is planning to cash in on the trial, which is still underway in Arizona. Arias follows in the Lifetime footsteps of the Craigslist Killer, Casey Anthony , Drew Peterson, Clark Rockefeller and other celebrity crime figures. Who do you think should play Jodi Arias in the movie? Any ideas?
Jesse Friedman just got some more ammunition in his efforts to overturn his 1989 sex-crimes conviction made famous by Andrew Jarecki’s Oscar-nominated documentary Capturing The Friedmans. Although Friedman, then 19, and his father Arnold, pleaded guilty to several hundred counts of sexual abuse in a case that rocked his hometown of Great Neck, NY, he has long since maintained his innocence, and a white paper issued by The National Center for Reason and Justice indicates that his exoneration is overdue. The report, which is titled Destruction of Innocence: How Coerced Testimony & Confessions Harm Children, Families & Communities for Decades After the Wrongful Convictions Occur. was authored by Emily Horowitz, Ph.D. and Gavin de Becker, a violence and predation expert and author of The Gift of Fear. The 42-page report, which can be found in its entirety here , contains new evidence and witness statements pertaining to the case and urges Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice to overturn the conviction. (In 2010, Rice launched a review of the case, which is expected to reach a conclusion soon.) The NCRJ report indicates that the Friedman case contains the 10 hallmarks of false sex crime prosecution: “Police Misconduct; Absence of Physical Evidence; Absence of Medical Evidence; Outlandish or Impossible Scenarios; Prosecutorial Misconduct; Judicial Misconduct; Coercive Interviews by Police and Therapists; Improper Relationship Between Police and Therapists; Use of Now-Discredited Memory-Recovery Techniques and Hypnosis; Police & Prosecutors Fuel Community Hysteria.” It also reveals: No child ever made any allegation or complaint against Jesse until after the police launched their investigation; The first 30 children questioned by police said they had not been abused; All charges against Jesse arose from statements of child witnesses – and all were based on statements made after the application of suggestive questioning methods; Children who attended classes alongside every one of the 14 complainants now confirm they saw no abuse in those classes; There was no physical or medical evidence ever presented against Jesse Freidman; All of the above and more was known by prosecutors and illegally withheld from Jesse’s defense lawyer, and There was clear misconduct on the part of police, prosecutors, and the judge. In 1988, Friedman and his father Arnold were charged with hundreds of counts of sexual abuse that allegedly took place during a computer class they taught in the family’s Great Neck, NY home. The charges came after police found Friedman’s father’s stash of pornography depicting adolescent boys in the house. Friedman, who’s now in his mid-40s, was released from prison in 2001 after serving 13 years of an 18-year sentence. (His father committed suicide in prison in 1995.) With the help of Jarecki and experts in wrongful conviction, he has set about clearing his name, and in the last few years has made headway. A 2010 decision by the Federal Appeals Court for the Second Circuit declared there was “a reasonable likelihood that Jesse Friedman was wrongfully convicted.” According to that decision, new evidence introduced by Jarecki and by Friedman’s legal team in the years since, shows that police and psychologists interviewing kids at the time used hypnosis and other “memory recovery techniques” that have since been shown to produce false memories and accusations. The court also suggested that allegations were elicited from children as young as eight years old by harsh interrogation methods and that Jesse’s guilty plea was the result of pressure by a biased judge who told Jesse’s lawyer that she intended to sentence Jesse to life without parole, a technique widely held to be “impermissibly coercive. In January, one of the Friedmans’ alleged victims Michael Epstein revealed that he had lied about having been sexually abused in the computer classes in order to put an end to the therapy sessions and repeated questioning he received as a result of the investigation. [ Social Science Research Network ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
It’s been a very tough year for Matt Lauer. The Today Show host has come under extreme fire for how he and NBC fired Ann Curry , while his program has sank to second in the ratings behind Good Morning America . Speaking to The Daily Beast about the departure of his ex-colleague, Lauer admits it didn’t exactly go smoothly. “I don’t think the show and the network handled the transition well,” says Lauer . “You don’t have to be Einstein to know that. It clearly did not help us. We were seen as a family, and we didn’t handle a family matter well.” Today is still struggling to recover, as Lauer says the series has been “kicked around a lot” but a lot of the damage has been “self-inflicted.” Having been the top-rated morning program for 16 years, Today now draws nearly one million fewer households than Good Morning America on a daily basis. What has led to this reversal? “We want people to feel good about a portion of their morning and we got away from that,” Lauer said, adding that much of the darkness is gone, by design.” Lauer concludes, however, that he’s the “luckiest guy I know” and he hopes to use the ratings decline as motivation: “Who’s going to feel sorry for me? Nobody. In some ways being number-two in the ratings is a real shot in the arm, a kick in the pants. It makes you hungrier – I don’t think it’s a bad thing to have a fire lit under your ass.”
Paging Dennis Rodman! The Worm may be known for rebounds, but we need a serious diplomatic assist on this one – and he has Kim Jong-Un’s ear. Why? Because North Korea is far from pleased right now. In the face of new U.N. sanctions, the rogue state is threatening to preemptively attack America. Despite Rodman’s desire to broker a peace deal , the North is threatening “a preemptive nuclear attack to destroy the strongholds of the aggressors.” The country says the United States is angling to start a war against the North, an assertion that stems from the latest round of sanctions on the table. The U.N. Security Council is considering a fourth round of sanctions against Pyongyang in an attempt to rein in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Among other things, the pending resolution specifies a long list of items that North Korea’s ruling elite class will no longer be allowed to import. So how serious is the threat to nuke the U.S.? For all North Korea’s bravado, it is not thought to have mastered the ability to produce a warhead small enough or a missile capable of reaching the U.S. It is believed to have enough nuclear fuel, however, for several crude nuclear devices, so our allies in South Korea are likely on much higher alert. Inflammatory rhetoric is common from North Korea, but especially so in recent days amid the threat of sanctions and U.S.-South Korean military drills. At a mass rally in Pyongyang on Thursday, tens of thousands of North Koreans protested the U.S.-South Korean actions. Army Gen. Kang Pyo Yong said: “Intercontinental ballistic missiles and various other missiles, which have already set their targets, are now armed with lighter, smaller and diversified nuclear warheads.” “They are placed on a standby status. When we shell (the missiles), Washington, which is the stronghold of evils …. will be engulfed in a sea of fire.” The latest U.N. resolution was drafted by the United States and China, which is significant as China has long been North Korea’s closest ally. The statement by the North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman “strongly warns the U.N. Security Council not to make another big blunder.” North Korea demanded that the U.N. Security Council immediately dismantle the American-led U.N. Command that’s based in Seoul, or else. In anticipation of the resolution’s adoption, North Korea earlier in the week threatened to cancel the 1953 cease-fire that ended the Korean War.
Men around the country have already ogled Katherine Webb bikini pictures . So the gorgeous brunette has gone ahead and given them the next best thing in the latest issue of Vanity Fair : Katherine Webb lingerie pictures! Watch for that drool and stare away now, fellas: Webb – who stars on ABC’s upcoming Splash , a diving-based reality competition and who is famous for dating Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron while being really hot – says she turned very few hears as a teenager. “It’s kind of ironic that I’m in this position that I’m in now, because I grew up as the ugly duckling,” she tells the magazine. “I was always the tallest girl in my class, and it made me have really bad posture because I wanted to seem shorter than I really was. It really reflected how I felt about myself. I spent most of my youth in school feeling really insecure about the way I looked because I was different.” It also sounds like Katherine is someone who would support Toddlers & Tiaras . At least based on her own experience in that industry. “Modeling and pageants help me overcome feeling insecure about the way that I look and my height. For me to go from feeling like I was the ugly duckling to winning Miss Alabama U.S.A., and going on to Miss U.S.A. and taking pictures for Sports Illustrated and being labeled as one of the most beautiful women… “I love sharing that with girls who are in my position at that age and kind of coaching them.” Speaking of coaching, we can think of a few positions we’d like to see Webb in.
A lion reportedly attacked a man and woman having sex in a bush in Africa, killing the woman. The incident occurred outside a Zimbabwe village. A source tells My Zimbabwe: “Unfortunately the woman, known as Mai Desire, was mauled to death by the lion; her boyfriend managed to escape naked and he was only wearing a condom.” The two having “quality time” near Mahombekombe Primary School. The man eventually notified police who found the woman’s mauled body, reports say. The Huffington Post reached out to the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management to confirm details of the attack but did not receive a response. The story of the deadly sex may seem quite unbelievable. It is worth noting that a similar incident with an almost identical outcome was reported in 2002. Then, the news outlet reported that a man and woman were attacked by a lion when they were having sex in a bush near their Tanzanian village. The ferocious feline attacked the woman, but the man escaped. When he returned later, the lion had disappeared, leaving only the woman’s remains. A 2005 study by the National Science Foundation discovered that 39 percent of lion attacks occur between March and May during the harvest season. That’s when farmers often sleep outside to protect their livestock. In Tanzania alone last year, more than 100 fatal lion attacks were reported.
Joy Behar is leaving The View after 16 years on the ABC daytime gab-fest. The 70-year-old’s contract is up in August and she has reportedly informed the network that she will not renew it as she moves on to other endeavors. As of now, Joy Behar is the last original View cast members other than co-creator/executive producer Barbara Walters who is still on the panel. “It seemed like the right time,” Behar told Deadline . “You reach a point when you say, ‘Do I want to keep doing this?’ There are other things I want to do. I’ve been writing a play, I’ve been neglecting my standup.” “I do like talk shows, I’m interested in talking to people,” she said, hinting at her own. “I want to do an intelligent talk show where you have room to breath.” Joy is rumored to be getting her own show on CNN. In the meantime, Behar will focus on closing this chapter of her career by spending a few more months with Walters and her other co-hosts on The View . “I have a lot of friends there, and I will miss everyone I’ve worked with; we have a family there,” Behar said. “Barbara was one of the main reasons I took that job.” Will you miss Joy Behar on The View? Yes. She’s the best! A little but the show must go on. No. Not a fan. View Poll »
The mother of Michael Jordan’s alleged love child never planned to file a paternity suit against the NBA legend, but the child himself reportedly insisted. According to TMZ, Pamela Smith had no desire to sue Jordan until her son pleaded with her to make his (alleged) dad admit paternity and pay support. Taj Jordan (Michael Jordan Secret Son) Video Pamela Smith is suing Michael for just that, paternity and child support, claiming MJ got her pregnant while he was still married to Juanita Vanoy. Sources close to Smith, who says Jordan knocked her up in 1995, has always had a good relationship with Michael and doesn’t need the money. However, it was her son Grant Reynolds (a.k.a. Taj Jordan) who desperately wants MJ to acknowledge him and urged her to file the legal documentation. Smith’s intention, her friends say, was never to “call Michael out” but simply to have the (alleged) father be a bigger part of his life for his sake. Allegedly, Michael and Grant have met a few times over the years. Pamela claims Michael has even given the family money and gifts here and there. Grant, 16, always had to keep it a secret, though … until he apparently decided not to anymore. The teen made the above video last December. No response yet from Jordan or his camp.
So, this actually happened in Pennsylvania this week… When a receptionist from an Ambridge doctor’s office phoned to remind student Travis Clawson that he had an upcoming appointment, the call went to voicemail No biggie, right? Except the receptionist heard the words “shooting” and “school” on the outgoing message… which led her to contact the police… who notified school officials… who instituted a lockdown of every school in the country. Fresh Prince Theme Song After 20 minutes, Clawson was finally tracked down in the guidance office and it was determined that the receptionist simply heard the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme song on his voicemail, which refers to “shooting some ball outside of the school.” Police Chief James Mann and District Attorney Anthony Berosh both spoke to Clawson and cleared up the issue. No charges will be pressed and we can only presume, with the situation hilariously resolved, that all parties then returned to chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool…
Former Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash is trying to get all three of the lawsuits alleging sexual misconduct by him dismissed, citing statutes of limitations. He stands accused of inappropriate sexual relations with boys under the age of 18; Clash previously denied all of the allegations against him. Clash attorney Michael Berger wrote in a brief Friday: “There are two applicable types of statutes of limitations , a six-year one based on when the right of action has accrued, and a three-year one based on when the alleged victim turned 18 and was therefore no longer under the disability of being a minor.” According to Clash’s camp, both have lapsed. Cecil Singleton , the first to file suit against the former Sesame Street staple, said in court documents that his interaction with Clash occurred in 2003. He was 15 at the time. He stated that he wasn’t “aware he had suffered adverse psychological and emotional effects from Kevin Clash’s sexual acts and conduct until 2012.” The second plaintiff, who filed as John Doe, said in his suit that he was 16 when he had an inappropriate sexual relationship with Clash in 2000. A third plaintiff, identified only as S.M., charged in a complaint that he was “16 or 17” when he had sexual contact with Clash in the mid-1990s. Yet another man, Sheldon Stephens , accused Clash of similar behavior before settling out of court … then saying he wishes he hadn’t settled. Berger states in today’s filing that the three men suing Clash would have needed to file suit, respectively, in 2009, 2006 and 2001 to be within six years. Or, based on their respective ages, in 2009, 2003 and 2000, respectively as the latest possible dates to be within three years of them turning 18. All three suits were filed in November and December of 2012. Jeff Herman, who represents all three plaintiffs, tells E! News he doesn’t think a motion to “avoid liability on technical grounds” will be successful. “It should be noted his motion does not say the abuse did not happen, just that it is too late to file the complaints,” Herman told the network in response. “The law we are proceeding under recognizes the rights of victims to bring their lawsuits within six years from the time they connect their injuries to the abuse.” “We are hopeful the Court will see it our way, however, by being able to bring their claims forth publicly the victims are already further along in the healing process.”
