Tag Archives: Legal

HUSTLER CLUB REJECTED

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Detroit council rejects Hustler strip club

The Detroit City Council today voted 5-3 against transferring a topless dancing permit from a downtown bar to potential owners wanting to open a Larry Flynt Hustler Club.

The property at 415 E. Congress is currently home to the Zoo Bar. An owners group, known as HDV Greektown, has asked for the license transfer.

An attorney for the owners said earlier this week that the club would employ up to 125 people.

Before the vote, an attorney for the Perfecting Church in Detroit urged City Council to vote down the license transfer.

Attorney Richard Mack of Detroit said the Zoo Bar is licensed for topless entertainment but hasn’t been an adult entertainment club for at least two years. The venue is mainly used as a concert hall, he said.

However, during the weeklong festivities before Super Bowl XL, adult film star Jenna Jameson hosted a party at the Zoo Bar that featured topless dancing.

“We must stand against this,” Mack said. “In this case, the club will be one of the largest strip clubs in the area – if not the state – within one block of a child day care center where parents may have to pick up their children at night.”

Mack said downtown crime will surge and property values will decline with a strip club in the area.

The City Council declined to act on a previous request to transfer the permits in 2003, prompting the owners to sue for the right to open.

The bar owners first took the council to court when it tried to prevent the opening of a Deja Vu strip club at the same location. A judge had ruled that the club could open.. At that time, owners also had talked about opening as a Hustler club.

The previous ruling permitted the owners to open a Deja Vu nightclub, but the council never transferred the liquor license.

Attorney Frank Palazzolo, who represents HDV Greektown, said the owners filed another lawsuit this year after the City Council declined to act on the transfer.

Palazzolo said: “My client is disappointed with today’s vote and we’ll just continue with the litigation that has already been institued.”

Council members who voted against the transfer were: Brenda Jones, Kwame Kenyatta, Martha Reeves, JoAnn Watson and Monica Conyers.

Sheila Cockrel, Alberta Tinsley-Talabi and Ken Cockrel Jr. voted for the transfer.

Sheila Cockrel declined comment except to say her vote reflected the “serious litigation” that is still pending.

Kenyatta countered that he’s not worried about the lawsuits.

“I think we’ll weather the storm on this,” said Kenyatta, who voted to reject the license transfer.

INVESTING IN PORN

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Getting in the skin game

An entrepreneur tries to make it easier for everyone to profit from one of the economy’s dirty little secrets.

(Business 2.0 Magazine) — Wall Street is largely a boys club, a place packed with hypercompetitive tough guys proud to wear their machismo on their sleeves. Yet there’s still one investment the Street is generally wary of: porn.

That’s why Francis Koenig, a onetime Wall Street hedge fund executive now based in Los Angeles, believes there are riches to be made by matching investors with “adult entertainment” companies. He believes that plenty of people would back the industry if there were vehicles commonly available to do so.

His reasoning is simple: Porn is a lucrative part of the American economy, hovering around $12 billion a year. And there are hundreds of porn outfits hungry for financing to become more than bedroom operations.

Make money in porn

“There just hasn’t been a good way to invest in this market,” says Koenig, 31.

An opportunity for small-time investors?
He launched AdultVest late last year to change that. He’s been courting investors and combing the country for small and medium-size porn businesses, some of which boast profit margins upwards of 60 percent. The response has been strong: Koenig says he’s signed up well over 1,000 potential investors since January.
For now, he’s catering to investors with big money, although he says his approach will eventually evolve to serve the investing masses. He’s raising money for two funds: a $100 million fund that requires a minimum investment of $1 million, and a $10 million fund with a $100,000 minimum.
Accredited investors can sign up on AdultVest.com to qualify, and Koenig says people are signing up at the rate of 15 per day. Roughly 300 companies – including website-porn subscription businesses, escort services, and strip clubs – have registered. Investors can also use the AdultVest marketplace to hook up directly with companies.

Koenig has a good track record: The New World Partners hedge fund, where he was a managing director, posted double- and triple-digit returns through the late ’90s – and he thinks similar returns are possible with porn. His funds are set up like any venture capital fund and will invest in a range of businesses, with a portion of each earmarked for buying and running strip clubs.

Adding some Wall Street finesse

The overarching strategy is to take majority stakes in businesses that AdultVest will then help manage and consolidate. Koenig won’t say how close he is to raising the total $110 million, but to help the sell, he and his team won’t charge any performance fee until the funds return 100 percent.

“There’s never been big money from the outside,” says Paul Fishbein, president of the leading porn trade tracker, AVN Publications, about the industry. “It’s a logical next step.”

Koenig is also working with large investors who are looking to take direct stakes in companies. Part of the pitch is that he ensures all investors total anonymity. “They’re creating a market that’s never existed in an industry that’s highly private,” says one Miami-based investor who’s looking to back firms with $5 million to $30 million in revenue.

For all the skittishness about investing in adult entertainment, Koenig points out that the smart money is catching on.

Playboy, for example, recently acquired the far racier empire of porn star Jenna Jameson for $17.6 million. And in August, New Frontier Media, a pay-per-view video distributor, received a buyout offer from Warren Lichtenstein, a tough-as-nails New York hedge fund manager who’s been going after companies he sees as ripe for turbocharged growth.

To Koenig, such moves show the promise of bringing Wall Street sophistication to what is now a supremely inefficient market.

In fact, he’s had talks with several brokerages interested in syndicating deals to sell to their Main Street investors. “People just need to get less shy,” Koenig says, “and they’ll realize that there’s silly money to be made here.”

WAS HUNTER THOMPSON MURDERED OVER INCRIMINATING 9-11 STORY?

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FROM GLOBAL NEWSBy PAUL WILLIAM ROBERTS

Hunter telephoned me on Feb. 19, the night before his death. He sounded scared. It wasn’t always easy to understand what he said,particularly over the phone, he mumbled, yet when there was something he really wanted you to understand, you did. He’d been working on a story about the World Trade Center attacks and had stumbled across what he felt was hard evidence showing the towers had been brought down not by the airplanes that flew into them but by explosive charges set off in their foundations. Now he thought someone was out to stop him publishing it: “They’re gonna make it look like suicide,” he said. “I know how these bastards think . . .”

He’d been working on a story about the World Trade Center attacks and
had stumbled across what he felt was hard evidence showing the towers
had been brought down not by the airplanes that flew into them but by
explosive charges set off in their foundations.

Hunter S. Thompson … was indeed working on such a story.

Now check out this February 25 Associated Press story about Thompson’s death. Sounds a lot like a professional hit with a silencer:

“I was on the phone with him, he set the receiver down and he did it. I heard the clicking of the gun,” Anita Thompson told the Aspen Daily News in Friday’s editions.

She said her husband had asked her to come home from a health club so they could work on his weekly ESPN column…

Thompson said she heard a loud, muffled noise, but didn’t know what had happened. “I was waiting for him to get back on the phone,” she said.

(Her account to Rocky Mountain News reporter Jeff Kass is slightly
different: “I did not hear any bang,” she told Kass. She added that
Thompson’s son, who was in the house at the time, believed that a book
had fallen when he heard the shot, according to Kass’ report.)

MICHAEL JACKSON ALLEGEDLY LASHES OUT AGAINST JEWS ON NEW TAPE

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POSSIBLY ANGRY THAT JEWS HAVE NOSES

LOS ANGELES, California (AP ) — The Anti-Defamation League on Wednesday demanded an apology from Michael Jackson after ABC aired what was said to be a telephone answering-machine message in which the pop star referred to Jews as “leeches”

The message was supposedly recorded two years ago and has now surfaced in connection with a lawsuit against the pop star.

“Michael Jackson has an anti-Semitic streak and hasn’t learned from his past mistakes,” ADL director Abraham H. Foxman said in a statement. “It seems every time he has a problem in his life, he blames it on Jews.”

Jackson infuriated Jewish groups in 1995 when his song “They Don’t Care About Us” included the lyrics “Jew me, sue me, everybody do me, kick me, kike me.” Jackson apologized, saying the lyrics were meant to demonstrate the hatefulness of racism, anti-Semitism and stereotyping. He then changed the lyrics.

On Tuesday, ABC’s “Good Morning America” aired portions of a 2003 voice message that Jackson was alleged to have left for a former adviser, Dieter Wiesner.

A transcript provided by the office of attorney Howard King quotes Jackson as saying: “They suck them like leeches. … They start out the most popular person in the world, make a lot of money, big house, cars and everything and end up penniless. It’s a conspiracy. The Jews do it on purpose.”

Jackson spokeswoman Raymone K. Bain said Wednesday the singer had no comment. A call to Jackson’s attorney Thomas Mesereau was not immediately returned.

The message was among about a dozen released by King, who represents Wiesner and another former adviser who are locked in business disputes with the pop star and are suing him for millions. King said he released the messages to keep Jackson from appearing sympathetic in court.

Jackson, now living in the Persian Gulf kingdom Bahrain, was acquitted in June of molesting a boy at his Neverland ranch.

ONLINE SAFETY FOR CHILDREN: A Q & A FOR DUMBASS PARENTS

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from www.theoympian.com

“Don’t talk to strangers” is one of the first rules most parents teach their children.

But that rule is rarely followed on the World Wide Web.
The anonymity of the Internet often gives stalkers, sex offenders, scam artists and other criminals easier access to children, authorities say.

Here are some questions and answers about online safety.

Q: What are some signs that my child might be at risk for an online predator?

A: There are several signs to watch for. Among them:

• He or she spends large amounts of time on the Internet, especially at night. While predators are online around the clock, most work during the day and spend their evenings online trying to locate and lure children or seeking pornography, authorities say.

• You find pornography on your child’s computer.Sex offenders often supply porn as a way to strike up a conversation and seduce potential victims. Report any online child pornography to your Internet service provider and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 800-843-5678.

• Your child is receiving telephone calls from adults you don’t know, or is making calls, sometimes long distance, to numbers you don’t recognize. Online predators often engage in “phone sex” with children, or use the phone to set up an actual meeting for sex.

Some predators obtain toll-free 800 numbers so their potential victims can call without their parents finding out. Others tell children to call them collect.

• Your child tuns off the computer monitor or quickly changes the screen when you enter a room — a sign that he or she might be viewing or posting inappropriate material.

Q: What should you do if you suspect your child is communicating with a sex predator online?

A: Consider talking openly about your concerns and suspicions. Review the material on your child’s computer for pornographic or sexual communication. Monitor your child’s access to all types of electronic communications, including chat rooms, instant messaging, text messages on cell phones. Sex offenders usually meet potential victims in chat rooms, but continue to chat with them via e-mail or other form of private communication, authorities say.

Q: How can you minimize the chances of a predator or scam artist victimizing your child?

A: It’s all about communication.

Teach your child about the potential of online danger: Let them know that it’s important to never give out personal information over the Internet, such as their real name, address, telephone number, school, workplace and hometown. Tell them never to agree to a face-to-face meeting with an online friend without your permission. If they plan to meet an online friend, they should take a friend, and arrange the meeting in a public place.

Other suggestions:

• Ask your child to show you his or her favorite Web sites.
• Get to know your children’s online friends, just as you would their regular friends.
• Use parental controls provided by your internet service provider, and find out what online safeguards are in your child’s school, library and friends’ computers, places outside your normal supervision.
• Monitor chat room use.
• Maintain access to your children’s e-mail accounts, and randomly check their messages.
• Consider asking your child to sign an Internet safety pledge, an agreement between the two of you about what’s OK and what’s not in cyberspace.

“As long as the parents and child have an open communication, put the computer in a common area and follow some common sense tips …they shouldn’t have a problem,” said Detective Jason Glantz, with the Washington State Patrol’s Missing and Exploited Children Task Force.

IT’S GOOD WHEN BEING RICH AND FAMOUS DOESN’T GUARANTEE A FREE RIDE

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R. KELLY’S TRYST WITH A TEEN GIRL IS CHILD’S PLAY COMPARED TO JERRY LEE LEWIS’ MARRIAGE TO HIS 13 YEAR OLD COUSIN…IF ONLY HIS CAREER GOT DESTROYED LIKE LEWIS’ FOLLOWING THE NEWS SO WE’D BE SPARED HIS ULTRA-CRAPPY MUSIC

R. KELLY “Signature” sunglasses, the ultimate in keeping urine out of the eyes of teenage girls

CHICAGO (AP) — Singer R. Kelly is a step closer to trial after a judge refused Friday to dismiss charges in a three-year old case against him for allegedly engaging in videotaped sex acts with an underage girl.

Kelly has pleaded not guilty to 14 counts of child pornography.

Cook County Judge Vincent Gaughan rejected defense arguments that prosecutors have been too vague about when the alleged crime took place, said county state’s attorney spokeswoman Marcy Jensen.

Prosecutors claim the video was made sometime during a nearly three-year span between January 1998 and October 2000. They cut 18 months off their original timeframe of November 1997 to February 2002 after a judge agreed in June that the span was too broad.

Defense attorney Ed Genson did not return a call for comment after business hours Friday.

Kelly, whose first name is Robert, won a Grammy for the gospel-like song I Believe I Can Fly. He’s also known for sexually charged music like Bump N’ Grind and Ignition.

The next court date was set for Dec. 9.

U.S. ARMY ENDS INVESTIGATION OF SOLDIERS POSTING DEAD IRAQI PICTURES ON INTERNET AS TRADE FOR PORN JUST DAYS AFTER NEWS HIT. SURPRISED?

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PLUS THE WEBSITE LINK RESPONSIBLE FOR HOSTING SUCH A INHUMANE CRIME

Fayner Posts: I looked at the pictures of American G.I.s smiling among exploded heads, torn limbs and much worse. It is appauling to think human life is so meaningless to the people who got a kick out of snapping pictures like this. Take a look for yourself. It’s fucking wrong.

http://www.nowthatsfuckedup.com

WASHINGTON, Sept 28 (Reuters) – The U.S. Army after a brief inquiry has failed to determine whether U.S. soldiers provided grisly photos of people killed in the Iraq war to a porn Web site in exchange for free access to it, officials said on Wednesday

The numerous graphic pictures posted on the Web site showed men, with their faces visible and wearing what looked like U.S. military uniforms, standing over a charred corpse, mutilated dead bodies and severed body parts.

The porn Web site states the photos were provided by troops in Iraq as well as Afghanistan in order to get free access to its sexual images. Many of the photos, still posted on the site, are accompanied by captions making light of the corpses; for example one photo of a charred body was dubbed “Cooked Iraqi.”

The Army Criminal Investigation Command in Iraq conducted the preliminary inquiry within the past week but closed it after concluding no felony crime had been committed and failing to determine whether U.S. soldiers were responsible for the photos and whether they showed actual war dead, Army officials said.

Col. Joe Curtin, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon, said there currently was no formal investigation into the matter.

“We’re not blowing this off,” Curtin said. “If the Army thinks it’s in its interest to investigate something, we will. There are multiple challenges here. One is the anonymity of the sources, dates, times, locations, units, anything that is reasonably identifiable that we can work off of.”

This controversy over the photographs involving U.S. military personnel comes a year and a half after other pictures taken by U.S. soldiers became public in April 2004 showing them abusing and sexually humiliating Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib jail, a scandal that prompted international condemnation of the United States.

‘CURSORY INVESTIGATION’

The Washington-based Muslim civil rights group Council on American-Islamic Relations, which had called for an investigation into the allegations of photos of corpses swapped for pornography, called the probe insufficient.

“It’s entirely inappropriate for the military to do such a cursory investigation of something that is really casting a very negative light on our nation’s military and can only serve to further damage America’s image and interests throughout the Islamic world,” said Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the group.

Hooper said the military must determine who was involved and whether the conduct violated U.S. military law and international laws governing conduct during wartime, including the Geneva Conventions.

Curtin said the Army was not ruling out the possibility of opening a formal criminal investigation. “Any time new information becomes available that’s credible, yes, they potentially could reopen the case,” he said.

The Web site separates the corpse pictures from its sexual images. According to an article in the Online Journalism Review of the Annenberg School for Communications at the University of Southern California, the site’s owner, Chris Wilson, lives in Lakeland, Florida, but hosts the site out of Amsterdam. The article quotes Wilson as saying the site’s images of nude female U.S. soldiers in Iraq and photos of war dead provide a “raw” account of war.

Officials said that while the Army’s preliminary inquiry had determined no felony act had taken place, soldiers potentially could be punished for conduct unbecoming a soldier, which generally brings administrative sanctions.

Without confirming the authenticity of the photos or who took them, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said, “This does not represent the values of the United States military, and doesn’t represent the vast majority of the actions and behavior of our men and women in uniform. It is a despicable practice. It’s unacceptable. And the department is going to address it.”

Curtin said the military was examining policies, procedures and legal implications of how soldiers transmit photos from the battlefield, and could consider limiting troops’ use of their own personal computers or cameras in a combat zone.

“The military must be very careful in not violating an individual’s First Amendment rights,” Curtin said, referring to the constitutional right of free expression.

“Soldiers encounter the horrors of war, and they are able to record it,” Curtin said. “You mix it with the porn site, now you muddy the waters.”

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker on Wednesday sent a message about “Internet Safety” to U.S. soldiers, but focused on restrictions on images that could compromise operational security on the battlefield. Curtin said the message was unrelated to the corpse photos.