In the Island paradise of the Bhamas, another celebrity’s son dies from what appears to be an accident. I have to say memories of Anna Nicole Smith’s losing her son due to an accident comes flooding back to me.
It will take such a long time to recover from the lost of a child, none of us ever expect to outlive our children.
Like Anna Nicole Smith, John Travolata’s son, Jett suffered from seizures. So very very sad to die so young. Accidental deaths, are such a hard thing for any of us to accept, but espcially parents in my opinion.
Jett Travolata will be returned to the U. S. following an atuotpsy to determine the cause of death which as we all know from Daniel Smith’s death is standard in the Bahamas in any accidental death.
Another family celebrating, when the worse kind of tragedy imaginable strikes down a child, so very sad.
This article is the sole property of Rose Speaks unless otherwise stated. This article as with other articles is based on the opinion of Rose Turner, or our guest authors if so indicated. Please remember we are not lawyers and those opinions expressed here are each of our individual opinions and should not be taken as legal advice and/or legal opinions. The comments following this article are the opinions and sole property of the site members and do not necessarily reflect those of the site owners.
Rose Speaks.com will be updating this weekend for the BLOG part only. The blog main data base will be rolled back and changed over at about midnight [Sunday December 28], IF the current theme works then all will go smoothly, if not it will be a tad bumpy through part of Monday. Yes we did not finish on Saturday night so it is being done tonight [Sunday] If the blog is down a few hours late at night never fear the full blog is always saved in a roll back database. We will also be adding some new features like a much easier category section, and a translation into several other languages we have been asked to add. We hope we keep improving and you keep stopping by to read.
We thought we might add this bit about cases, old and new ones you have told us you would like Rose Speaks.com to follow. If you want something added to this list, please post it here and let us know.
Casey Anthony – Caylee Anthony – George and Cindy Anthony – Lee Anthony - Anthony case.
The Mike Corona case out of Orange County California, and the interwoven cases that have all come from this case (I.E. Don Haidl and before Corona’s case how it relates to Haidls’ son’s case, And the tail of the two Debbies)
Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and his staff and family as they all began to lawyer up.
Dr. Cyril H. Wecht - Because you just can’t make this up, the government needs help in a change of venue to “convict” the doctor on the second go round, cause the people love him.
D. C. Madame, Deborah Palfrey and her Estate.
Henry T. Nicholas III - California Billionaire, just had to allegedly possess and with intent to distribute drugs, with secret rooms beneath his homes. You have to just love California and what they bring to us, last year Anthony Pellicano and this year Henry T. Nicholas III.
The Hogan family’s continued problems and associated lawsuits.
Michelle Braun, Millionaire Madame and her Client list you are not going to believe who all is included and those she intends or might take down with her unlike the D. C. Madame, Deborah Palfrey.
Lori Drew, the ultimate case of cyber bullying and what her conviction is going to do to the rest of the nation in new laws.
A couple of Rock Bands just to spice things up here on Rose Speaks.com with people who know them well and are willing to give us their take on the current woes a couple of these bands find themselves in.
Thanks to Sprocket the ongoing Phil Spector trial in California, take two.
Roland Carnaby Civil Rights case from Houston Texas of an alleged CIA or FBI operative gun down, who died from gun shot wounds causing death due to blood lost, and why no one is standing trial for this death listed as a “homicide”.
Two Yale Law Students who decided to sue anonymous blog posters for defamation and what this also might generate in online defamation and/or law changes.
New Cases that catches the attention of John J. Nazarian P. I. – Security Consultant, whatever catches the fancy of Mr. Nazarian, we hope he will share with Rose Speaks.com.
All things Anna Nicole Smith related as many of those trials come to an end in 2009. Which by the way the New York Judge has granted Howard K. Stern’s legal team’s request for more time to answer Rita Cosby’s Motion for Summary Judgment. The new date due is February 6, 2009, based on that all of the paperwork filed by Elizabeth McNamara on December 15 was wrong and so had to be refiled on December 19, 2008.
If there is a case you would like to see us follow, let us know, and if we can we will. If you would like to follow a case and write articles for the blog, we welcome you, just drop us an email.
There will be a new article up on Casey Anthony today, and debunking of the blond ambitious, Cosby’s book will be up before the stroke of midnight on December 31.
This article is the sole property of Rose Speaks unless otherwise stated. This article as with other articles is based on the opinion of Rose Turner, or our guest authors if so indicated. Please remember we are not lawyers and those opinions expressed here are each of our individual opinions and should not be taken as legal advice and/or legal opinions. The comments following this article are the opinions and sole property of the site members and do not necessarily reflect those of the site owners.
On the night of December 15 into the early morning of the 16th for about seven to nine hours, on PACER were the filings of Elizabeth McNamara’s Declaration in support of her client, Rita Cosby’s Motion for Summary Judgment with exhibits A – HH.
After the seven to nine hours that the documents were on PACER for the whole world or those of us with PACER accounts to download, Ms. McNamara filed a letter with the Court dated December 16. She was both advising the Court that the exhibits had been filed in error and requesting that she be allowed to file her Declaration corrected. Her letter went on to state she had contacted the other counsels in this case and had also contacted the Clerk of Court to remove the documents because some of them should have been filed under Seal. The Court granted this request on December 17, and Ms. McNamara got a “do over” on December 19, however, she also filed corrected versions of ALL of Rita Cosby’s filings that were due and had been filed with the Court on time by the Court’s Ordered due date of December 15. We have not yet completed rechecking those documents compared with the Originals filed on December 15 to see if any of them had been changed or redacted. However, all of those filings from both December 15 and December 19, minus the infamous document number 73 remain on PACER for everyone to download.
Rose Speaks.com did in fact download that now infamous filing of docket number 73, the Declaration of Ms. McNamara with all of the exhibits attached. We have struggled since the morning of December 16 as to whether to put up these documents including the Exhibits marked “confidential” or “highly confidential” filed with Ms. McNamara’s Declaration. We have pondered whether any of the other parties and/or their legal counsel involved in suits in other jurisdictions, (I. E. Texas both federal and state; California probate, South Carolina etc.), some of which have the same parties in those cases had downloaded the documents. Since they, [the papers], were put up in error by Ms. McNamara then that brings up the question of was any of the three versions of the Agreed Confidential Orders the Federal Court in New York had issued previously, each time tightening up the previously filed Agreed Order to protect the privacy of the parties? I have to say on a side note that what Ms. McNamara filed in error, makes those fourteen pages of Rita Cosby’s deposition filed by Lin Wood back in November 2007 look like a minor mistake and one hopefully that NOONE ever refers to in the future. Like with these papers, Rose Speaks.com had on November 29 - 30 downloaded those papers at 11 A. M. making Lin Wood releasing them to Art Harris after 5 PM on November 30 a moot point.
However, I regress to other days and other papers filed in error and not under Seal as the Federal Court in New York had intended and displayed by the additional Orders issued by the Court. The infamous document 73 with exhibits contained four of the eight excerpts of depositions referred to in Ms. McNamara’s Declaration. These excerpts of depositions were clearly marked confidential. I cannot begin to imagine the horror and personal violation that each of the four people whose excerpts were filed in error must feel. Some of the excerpts referred to delicate financial information with exhibits attached including one of the person’s social security number. The other filings that were marked confidential or highly confidential were multiple documents filed in the California Court regarding Dannielynn’s paternity in the fall of 2006. Clearly, both the California Family Court as well as Larry Birkhead never intended for any of these documents to be filed for the world to read. The documents ALL showed “highly confidential” marked on each of four exhibits of documents, including affidavits involving that suit filed under Seal as is my understanding required in Family Courts in California where a minor child is a subject of the suit. Mr. Birkhead’s attorney Michael Trope placed “highly confidential” on those documents before releasing them per a Court Order.
Other documents filed in error included the copy of the Royal Bahamian Police Affidavit filed by Ford Shelley on November 17, 2006, after the fight about Horizons had become front and center both in the Bahamas Courts as well as the Court of public opinion. There is also a partial filing of Howard K. Stern’s Affidavit filed with the Royal Bahamian Police dated September 10, 2006.
Ms. McNamara, in her Declaration, has marked exhibit R as being filed under seal and showing it redacted on her declaration as to the contents of the exhibit, in actuality all ten exhibits marked as exhibit R were filed by Ms. McNamara, some filed on December 16 and the rest filed on December 19 with the “do-over”. Exhibit R refers to the Court Proceedings, in the Bahamas related to Daniel Smith’s death and inquest.
After almost a week of discussions between Ken and myself weighing the “right of the public to know” versus the “right of privacy of these individuals” we have made a decision as to what to put up from this infamous filing of document 73 and what not to put up. We will NOT put up any of the four excerpts of depositions with exhibits filed in error. We will NOT put up any of the documentation involving the filings under Seal in 2006 with the family courts in California marked “highly confidential” in the accidental filing by Ms. McNamara on December 15. We did upload those exhibits that referred only to the CDs filed with the Court that were marked either “confidential” or “highly confidential”. We are also making available to download exhibit X, which is a brief excerpt from the book “Big Beautiful Doll” by Eric Redding. Although that exhibit is marked confidential since anyone can buy the book we felt like nothing in the Stern vs. Cosby case would be compromised. Exhibits BB and CC are identical except for about 15 pages marked “confidential” or “highly confidential”. Since this appears to be hand written notes by either Rita Cosby or her ghost writer Bruce Littlefield, those pages have been redacted and removed from what is available for you to download.
We hope you understand what we have gone through this week as we struggled with what we felt was the appropriate documents to put up for all to read. We hope each of you understand those documents we elected not to put up was strictly based on the fact we firmly believe those person’s involved, especially Dannielynn, “rights to privacy” trumps you the public, “right to know”.
Lawyers make mistakes as this filing clearly demonstrates. Hopefully, throughout the rest of the lawsuits involving these same people and lawyers, Lin Wood included, instead of the “mantra” of, (fill in the blank with a lawyer’s or party’s name here), cannot be trusted will now change. Our hope is that based on this horrible accident that in the future, as exampled in the case where Wood released 14 pages of a deposition, that the “mantra” of not being able to trust a lawyer and/or party will now be replaced with a sincere apology. As well as to figure out how to avoid in the future damage done by this type of mass filing of confidential papers which were available to the world via PACER for seven to nine hours.
These documents are in our download section, opened to ALL, not just members of Rose Speaks.com.
There will be two more articles up today. One debunking either Hachette’s filing for Summary Judgment including declarations and exhibits or the debunking of Cosby’s filing for Summary Judgment including declarations and exhibits. The second article that will be put up today will be about Casey Anthony and what happens now in that sad saga since the remains of Caylee have now been found.
This article is the sole property of Rose Speaks unless otherwise stated. This article as with other articles is based on the opinion of Rose Turner, or our guest authors if so indicated. Please remember we are not lawyers and those opinions expressed here are each of our individual opinions and should not be taken as legal advice and/or legal opinions. The comments following this article are the opinions and sole property of the site members and do not necessarily reflect those of the site owners.
Keeping the promise that Larry Birkhead had shared with a national magazine a few weeks ago, both Howard K. Sterna, Larry Birkhead and Birkhead’s daughter, Dannielynn “Hope”, were present on what would have been Anna Nicole Smith’s forty-first birthday for the setting of the monument, which almost entirely covers the graves of her and her son Daniel Smith. There are no other details about who was invited to the private setting of the stone.
Larry Birkhead gave the exclusive story to his hometown paper, the Louisville Kentucky Courier Journal, about the monument and its details on the night of December 11, and within 12 hours it was picked up by TMZ.com and is being reported last night and today in U. S. as well European papers and blogs.
Birkhead had commissioned the stone to a hometown company of Evans Monument Company for the etching and setting of a five foot by six foot, 3,805-pound granite from China. The etchings consisted of a picture of Anna Nicole Smith, one of her son Daniel Smith and the one with this article said to be Anna Nicole’s favorite picture of her with her son.
The inscriptions read, for Anna Nicole Smith, “I love you more then all the fishies in the Sea”, and Daniel Smith’s inscription reads, “I love you more than all the raindrops in the sky”.
The stone is black granite but in the beautiful pictures on the Evans Monument Company site, it appears to have been polished to a beautiful midnight blue hue, perhaps it is only the hue of the picture and not the stone.
This article is the sole property of Rose Speaks unless otherwise stated. This article as with other articles is based on the opinion of Rose Turner, or our guest authors if so indicated. Please remember we are not lawyers and those opinions expressed here are each of our individual opinions and should not be taken as legal advice and/or legal opinions. The comments following this article are the opinions and sole property of the site members and do not necessarily reflect those of the site owners.
In the Howard K. Stern vs. Rita Cosby and Hachette Books, on December 11, 2008, there was a letter addressed to Judge Denny Chin from Elizabeth A. McNamara requesting the Court for permission to file Motion for Summary Judgment for Rita Cosby and Hachette Books under seal. The Court DENIED the request to file the papers under seal “except that the parties may file a set of papers publicly, with confidential exhibits omitted and references to any confidential matters redacted, with a second complete and unredacted set that will be filed under sealed”.
Looks like the New York Court is going to allow us to see publicly some of the information that Cosby and Hachette is attempting to show in the Motions for Summary Judgment due to the Court by December 15.
What do you think we will be allowed to see and gleam for the filings due on Monday? Debunking chapter 13 will be up this weekend, lot’s to discuss in this case as well as several others we are following.
Remember that ALL documents filed in this case are in our download section, opened to ALL not just members of Rose Speaks.com.
This article is the sole property of Rose Speaks unless otherwise stated. This article as with other articles is based on the opinion of Rose Turner, or our guest authors if so indicated. Please remember we are not lawyers and those opinions expressed here are each of our individual opinions and should not be taken as legal advice and/or legal opinions. The comments following this article are the opinions and sole property of the site members and do not necessarily reflect those of the site owners.
The newest nine papers filed in the Texas State Court lawsuit that we have access to, are now up. ALL OF THE EMAILS IN ANY OF THE EXHIBITS REQUESTING PRODUCTIONS OF PERSON’S PRIVATE EMAIL HAVE BEEN REDACTED AND THOSE PAGES HAVE BEEN REMOVED FROM THE EXHIBITS BEFORE I UPLOADED THEM ALSO MOST OF THE NAMES OF INDIVIDUALS HAVE BEEN REMOVED OR THE PAGES THEY ARE ON HAVE BEEN REMOVED WHERE WE COULD AND STILL KEEP THE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION IN TACT. If you see something additionally that should be redacted please email us and we will redact those as well.
Howard K. Stern’s Response to Virgie Arthur’s Opposition has a couple of new and interesting facts alleged.
Virgie Arthur filed a Second Amended Original Petition has been filed with the latest alleged new facts and attempting to add Larry Birkhead as a defendant but the date to join additional parties was December 1. There is no way to predict if the Court will allow additional joiner of parties this late lawsuit.
The rest as you know we cannot comment on because one of the co-owners of Rose Speaks.com is a defendant currently in the lawsuit.
This article is the sole property of Rose Speaks unless otherwise stated. This article as with other articles is based on the opinion of Rose Turner, or our guest authors if so indicated. Please remember we are not lawyers and those opinions expressed here are each of our individual opinions and should not be taken as legal advice and/or legal opinions. The comments following this article are the opinions and sole property of the site members and do not necessarily reflect those of the site owners.
This first article of a three-part series will deal with the letter to the Honorable Denny Chin, Judge for the Southern District of New York, in Manhattan from Rita Cosby’s attorney Elizabeth McNamara dated November 26. This letter was endorsed by Judge Chin and made into an Order regarding the extra pages in the Motion and Reply to Motion for Summary Judgment that both Cosby and Hachette Books will be allowed to file in this defamation case with extra pages in the Reply by Howard K. Stern and put on PACER on December 2.
Many of us wondered when the column by Thomas Zambito appeared in the New York Daily News dated December 3, why the attorney for Howard K. Stern, L. Lin Wood did not release a statement refuting Mr. Zambito’s article. It could be argued that this column could potentially taint any jury pool of this case, which has for the most part subsided from the mainstream media.
I have no answer for that but let’s talk about the sensationalism of the title; “Anna Nicole Smith’s pal Howard K. Stern is beyond being libeled”. The short column goes on to state in part that “…Stern’s reputation is so bad that not even… claiming he and Smith’s boyfriend were gay lovers is libelous, the author’s lawyer claims.” The column quotes from the letter by Ms. McNamara to Judge Chin stating, “Given the mountain of negative news stories that were previously published about plaintiff, Mr. Stern is libel-proof.” The column ends with a strange reference of, “He [Stern] cites one in which Cosby quotes actress Jackie Hatten claiming she walked in on Stern performing oral sex on Larry Birkhead - the father of Smith’s baby.” Whoa Mr. Zambito, what a finished and by the way do you know where Jackie Hatten is, and has Cosby found this important witness that she might need to appear if this case goes to trial?
Mr. Zambito seems to have the “celebrity beat” of federal suits in the Manhattan Federal Courts. In 2005, Elizabeth McNamara gave Mr. Zambito a couple of quotes from another suit she was involved in with the Manhattan Federal Court.
So both articles aside in this first of a three part series let’s look at what Ms. McNamara is stating will be the blond ambitious Rita Cosby’s main claims in the Motion for Summary Judgment.
1. Lack of actual malice
2. Parts of the passages are not defamatory
3. Parts are substantially true or constitute protected opinion
4. Given the mountains of negative news stories that were previously published about plaintiff, Mr. Stern is libel proof.
“Actual malice in United States law is a condition required to establish libel against public officials or public figures and is defined as “knowledge that the information was false” or that it was published, “with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.” Reckless disregard does not encompass mere neglect in following professional standards of fact checking. The publisher must entertain actual doubt as to the statement’s truth.” That is a tough one to overcome for a public person such as Howard K. Stern has become since the death of Anna Nicole Smith.
The next issue to address in McNamara outline of defenses is, “Parts of the passages are not defamatory”. “In law, defamation (also called calumny, libel, slander, and vilification) is the communication of a statement that makes a false claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, business, product, group, government or nation a negative image. …Related to defamation is public disclosure of private facts which arises where one person reveals information which is not of public concern and the release of which would offend a reasonable person. “Unlike libel, truth is not a defense for invasion of privacy.”
Next is Cosby’s claim that parts of her book is covered by a basis in law calling those passages as “constitute protected opinion”. However, the Supreme Court has ruled that a statement that is provable true or false, for example, is not an opinion. In the 1990 Supreme Court decision of Milkovich v. Lorain Journal, simply put is that, “The Supreme Court said that newspaper columns and other forms of commentary may be libelous if they “imply an assertion of objective fact” that the plaintiff can prove is false.” (I. E. can Stern prove that the allegations of the gay sex tape that made up the part of Cosby’s book that made it a best seller as being “false”.) That is an overly simple example in the above decision. In that decision, Chief Justice Rehnquist gave an example. He said the statement, ”In my opinion Mayor Jones is a liar,” would be actionable, while the statement, ”In my opinion Mayor Jones shows his abysmal ignorance by accepting the teachings of Marx and Lenin,” would be protected opinion. Simply put if the person suing can prove that the “opinion was stated as fact” and that statement can be proved as false, then there is a serious chance the court will not find that statement as being “constitute protected opinion.” Remember at the beginning of this case, Judge Chin simplified this into “the book speaks for itself, either it is true or it is false”. Add to that Ms. Cosby has openly admitted that she did not interview anyone with a different “opinion” as to where she wanted her book to go because she knew they would try to prevent the book from being published. That in itself should have given a seasoned reporter that knew the basic rules of vetting sources and checking “facts”, some pause of concern. You can also read the Oral Arguments in front of the Supreme Court in relations to this case in our download section.
Then we have the claim that “Mr. Stern is libel proof.” I think that will be a slippery slope for Ms. Cosby and her publisher. On February 12, 2007, we have Star Magazine David Caplan on MSNBC, stating, “Nothing was really known about Howard K. Stern and so after Anna Nicole Smith’s death everyone began to investigate who Howard K. Stern really was”. That statement shows that nothing horrendous was known about Howard K. Stern at the time of Anna Nicole Smith’s death. Then we have the February 14, 2007 interview of Rita Cosby with Virgie Arthur where it was Rita Cosby who was the first one in a husky whisper to say, “Howard K. Stern facilitated a murder or was an accomplish”. It was at this time that Dan Abrams, a lawyer and Cosby’s boss, gave a warning about those type of statements could lead to a libel suit. It was soon after that interview that MSNBC announced Cosby’s contract would not be renewed. We also have Cosby saying she only researched the book from April to June 2007 that could be a problem also for Cosby.
Add to that the pesky rulings in the past of, “However, a court will not dismiss a defamation action merely because the plaintiff already has a bad reputation. Schiavone Construction Co. v. Time, Inc., 646 F. Supp. 1511, 1516 (D.N.J. 1986), rev’d, 847 F.2d 1069, 1072-73 (3rd Cir. 1988). Finklea, 742 S.W.2d at 516 (“[E]ven the public outcast’s remaining good reputation is entitled to protection.”) Rather the statement upon which the defamation claim is based should relate to the same matters upon which the prior bad reputation was founded, or to substantially similar matters.
In extreme cases, a plaintiff’s general reputation may be so bad that a court will hold a plaintiff libel-proof on all matters. For example, Charles Manson or Adolph Hitler could not be damaged by defamatory statements. Langston v. Eagle Publishing Co., 719 S.W.2d 612, 623 (Tex. App. 1986). I don’t think any of us think for a minute that Stern rises to the element of Manson or Hitler.
So perhaps the mantra led by John O’Quinn and company that Howard K. Stern “murdered” two people will get a pass from the court. However, the gay allegation and the “absolute statement that the tape existed with no doubt about that” is what sold Cosby’s book now that is going to be a tough sell to any court in my opinion.
The couple of things Cosby has going for her is that Lin Wood has never taken a defamation case all the way to trial, whereas Cosby’s lawyer Elizabeth McNamara has taken cases all the way to trial and won (I. E. The Da Vinci Code). Wood also admits that the “Actual Malice” is an almost impossible standard to meet. He also stated in that same article though that one day the right case to take to trial will present itself. Hopefully Wood will take this case all the way to trial.
Those things being said, I just don’t think that gay tape and that Howard K. Stern was Larry Birkhead’s gay lover without proof of that is going to pass the smell test of getting this case dismissed on a Motion for Summary Judgment by Cosby and Hachette.
Part 2 of the 3 part series will be a look at what Lin Wood has been able to do for his list of high profile clients and what they ended up with as a result of Wood taking their cases. The final part will be my personal take on why the Florida case settled out of court so quickly once they met with the mediator on October 30, 2008.
Join us tonight in chat to discuss this case and tell us what you think is going to happened with the blond ambitious Cosby. You do have to be a registered member of the chat, but we think you will enjoy both the company and the topics.
Remember that the documents for the cases/trials we cover are in our download section, opened to ALL, not just members of Rose Speaks.com.
This article is the sole property of Rose Speaks unless otherwise stated. This article as with other articles is based on the opinion of Rose Turner, or our guest authors if so indicated. Please remember we are not lawyers and those opinions expressed here are each of our individual opinions and should not be taken as legal advice and/or legal opinions. The comments following this article are the opinions and sole property of the site members and do not necessarily reflect those of the site owners.
