By Art Harris, (c) www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

I was in “diplomatic talks” with a girlfriend in Los Angeles, and it was not going well when my cell phone rang with a reprieve to cover a tragic romance much bigger than mine.

“Princess Diana just died in a car crash in Paris,” my then-executive producer at CNN was saying, “how fast can you get there?”

Not fast enough.

Within hours, I was on a plane to join a CNN-Time magazine team scrambling to dig into a mega-mystery that still hangs heavy over the Seine like a river fog. Read the rest of this entry »

G. BEN THOMPSON, S.C. REAL ESTATE DEVELOPER

By Art Harris, (c) www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

The Bald Truth has learned that the South Carolina developer charged with contempt in connection with the Horizon’s home break-in has again snubbed the Bahamian Supreme Court, skipping his second scheduled hearing Tuesday.

After the no-show by G. Ben Thompson, who briefly dated Anna Nicole Smith, Her Ladyship Justice Allen ordered the case against him to proceed anyway.

Thompson and his lawyer, Godfrey Pro Pinder, are charged with violating court injunctions in the so-called break-in at Horizons, where the developer’s son-in law, Ford Shelley, admitted he removed dvds, computers and other items belonging to Smith, the day after the Playboy centerfold died.

Executor Howard K. Stern filed burglary charges against Shelley, who Bahamian police sources tell me is still under investigation. At the contempt hearing two weeks ago, Pinder presented an affadavit by Thompson, who skipped that hearing as well, claiming he feared for his safety after undisclosed “threats” if he appeared in the Bahamas. Read the rest of this entry »

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Michael Vick apologized Monday for “using bad judgment and making bad decisions” and vowed to redeem himself after pleading guilty to a federal dogfighting charge.

“First I want to apologize for all the things that I’ve done and that I have allowed to happen,” the star quarterback said at a news conference following his appearance in U.S. District Court to formally enter the plea.

Sentencing was set for Dec. 10 and Vick could be sent to prison for one to five years. Vick was suspended indefinitely by the NFL last week.

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ATLANTA, UPI–Aug. 25 Michael Vick stands to lose upwards of $100 million after his admission Friday to federal charges connected to dogfighting.

That figure could skyrocket to upwards of $144 million, according to The Atlanta Journal Constitution, reporting Sunday that lost Nike contracts, an Atlanta Falcons bonus and other deals gone South could make Vick’s career sack the biggest reversal of fortune in NFL, or even U.S. sports, history.

The beleaguered Atlanta Falcons quarterback signed a plea agreement admitting conducting an enterprise including gambling and the sponsoring and transporting of dogs in dogfighting operations.

Afterward, he was suspended indefinitely without pay by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

Falcons’ owner Arthur Blank said the team wants to recover its $22 million bonus from the 10-year, $130 million contract Vick signed in December 2004. Read the rest of this entry »

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Associated Press—-The NFL indefinitely suspended Michael Vick without pay Friday just hours after he acknowledged in court papers that he did, indeed, bankroll gambling on dogfighting and helped kill some dogs not worthy of the pit.

Vick, however, insisted he placed no bets of his own nor took any winnings.

In disciplining Vick, commissioner Roger Goodell said Vick’s admitted conduct was “not only illegal but also cruel and reprehensible” and regardless whether he personally placed bets, “your actions in funding the betting and your association with illegal gambling both violate the terms of your NFL player contract and expose you to corrupting influences in derogation of one of the most fundamental responsibilities of an NFL player.”

WARNING: graphic photo…of one of Vick’s Victims:

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By Art Harris, (c) www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

In another Bald Truth exclusive, we bring you more fighting words –new exhibits from the Stern-O’Quinn defamation wars.

First, a threat letter from Vergie Arthur lawyers demanding Team Stern stop trashing Anna Nicole Smith’s mother, or else…Then lawyer Krista Barth’s counter-punch, an epistle back across the Texas bow, challenging the motive JOQ offered on one talk show for Anna’s murder—that Howard K. Stern was plotting to collect on seven, $10 million life insurance polices we’re told never existed!

exhibit-correspondence-from-don-clark-to-krista-barth.pdf

exhibit-correspondence-from-m-krista-barth-to-don-clark-dated-3-20-2007.pdf
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By Art Harris, (c), www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

In a Bald Truth exclusive, we’ve obtained the August 16 court document that says developer G. Ben Thompson is dropping any claim to the Horizon’s home he’s maintained he owned and bought for Anna Nicole Smith.

The late Playboy centerfold said it was a gift, and held a deed to the property that is now part of her estate.

In the ‘NOTICE OF WITHDRAWAL,” lawyer Godfrey Pro Pinder says Thompson, who claims to have briefly dated Smith, “wholly withdraws their legal action” claiming he owns the $950,000 home he helped arrange for Smith.

But we’ve also learned Thompson has filed a separate lawsuit for “damages” against the law firm that represented him in the Horizon’s deal, Callander’s and Company, and named Smith’s estate executor Howard k. Stern, in what sources say, is a roundabout attempt to recover what he says he spent to secure Horizons for Anna Nicole. Read the rest of this entry »

By Art Harris, (c), www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

It’s all in the exclusive Howard K. Stern countersuit against lawyer John O’Quinn we’ve obtained, including excerpts from FOX News talk host Greta Van Sustern and CNN’s Nancy Grace, separately warning Vergie’s lawyer there’s no evidence to call Stern a killer.

In the lawsuit memo, Stern attorney Lin Wood details why a judge should deny the claims of Vergie Arthur’s billionaire lawyer that he did not defame Smith’s executor by calling him a “murderer” on national television.

In his legal memo, Wood recaps the accidental overdose of Smith and earlier, her son Daniel, who also succumbed to a bizarre mix of anti depressants and methadone, and the public accusations made by Anna Nicole’s mother, then O’Quinn, that Stern had to be the killer. Stern wants him held legally accountable for false and defamatory statements:

stern-oquinn-memorandum-of-law-8-20.pdf

By Art Harris, (c) www.artharris.com, all rights reserved

In a world wide web exclusive, The Bald Truth has learned Texas lawyer John O’Quinn spent $400,000 to bankroll the mother of Anna Nicole Smith and her failed quest to have the late Playboy centerfold buried in Texas, against Anna’s wishes.

In his August 16 deposition, obtained first by The Bald Truth, Virgie Arthur’s billionaire Texas lawyer John O’Quinn reveals he paid for planes, hotels and expenses for Virgie, her husband and a sister, to shuttle between Texas, and courts in Florida and the Bahamas, including private investigators to dig dirt on Stern.

He was grilled under oath for the defamation suit Stern filed against him by Atlanta lawyer Lin Wood, who also got O’Quinn to reveal he’d funded the attempt to toss out Judge Larry Seidlin’s ruling that Smith be buried in the Bahamas, but the Florida Court of Appeals turned him down.

In the 204 page deposition, O’Quinn says he performed another important “service” for Virgie— forming a wedge with fellow lawyers to bulldoze her through the wall of reporters outside the Broward County Courthouse. Wood’s artful grilling reads like something out of Comedy Central.

“Really, it was crazy,” recalls lawyer John O’Quinn, detailing how he fought to get his client into the Broward County courtroom, where he lost the right to have Anna Nicole Smith buried in Texas. “I’m not talking about hitting somebody with your fists, but you had to really struggle to get through this mass of reporters…Virgie would maybe hold onto our belts…”

O’Quinn says Anna Nicole’s mother, estranged from her daughter for the last 10 years, has yet to pay him a penny for his quest to bring Anna Nicole back to Texas, and doesn’t expect to be paid.

8-16-deposition-of-john-oquinn.pdf

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Larry Birkhead and his daughter, Dannielynn, will celebrate her first birthday at the Louisville home where Birkhead first met Anna Nicole Smith, the baby’s mother, reports the Associated Press.

We’ve learned it will be Sept. 5, 2007, and that Howard K.Stern and his family have been invited. Read the rest of this entry »