Crime, She Writes

A Tale of Plagiarism: So Avoidable, So Detectable

noreply@blogger.com (Cathy Scott) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 03:42:00 +0000

By Cathy Scott

Nothing is worse for an author than opening a book and discovering passages from your own work used as if they were that author’s words.

This just happened to me with someone else’s newly released book.

Read complete piece here, on ForbesWoman blog Crime, She Writes.

Did Cindy Anthony Negotiate to Save Daughter Casey's Life

noreply@blogger.com (Cathy Scott) — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 22:14:00 +0000

Read Blog on ForbesWoman Here by True Crime Writer Cathy Scott.

Synopsis:
Did Cindy Anthony negotiate with her conscience, her god and the defense to save daughter Casey’s life? Did she contact Casey’s lawyers, even though she was a witness for the prosecution, and offer testimony midway through trial to take the death penalty off the table?

Cindy surely knew – as did half the nation – that in the absence of premeditation, jurors could not convict Casey of first-degree murder.

Is Confession Real in Tupac Shooting?

noreply@blogger.com (Cathy Scott) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 06:28:00 +0000

Jimmy "Henchman" Rosemond

by Cathy Scott
Reprinted from Women in Crime Ink

Something stinks in River City, namely the bold words of a convict named Dexter Isaac who, on the eve of what would have been rapper Tupac Shakur’s 40th birthday, “confessed” to shooting Tupac in November 1994 during a grab-and-run armed robbery at a recording studio in New York City.

Tupac survived that shooting. With him that winter night was rapper Randy “Stretch” Walker, who a year later was shot and killed driving a vehicle. Two years after the Quad Studios event, Tupac, too, was killed in a car-to-car shooting, which remains unsolved but is widely believed to have been carried out by the Crips street gang out of Compton, California.

Isaac chose to announce his so-called confession on AllHipHop.com, a popular rap site. Isaac, in his grand confession, claimed he was paid $2,500 by Czar Entertainment founder James “Jimmy Henchman” Rosemond to pull off the stunt. Isaac also claims he kept “the gold chain” he and a supposed accomplice yanked from Tupac’s neck. The problem with that claim is everything Isaac has said can be found in newspaper accounts of the ’94 shooting. Another problem is that several gold chains, not just one, as Isaac stated, were stolen from Tupac that night.

Isaac’s confession doesn’t add up, and I, for one, am not buying it.

Here’s what actually played out in the late-night hours of November 30, 1994: Tupac was wearing $35,000 worth of jewelry, including two rings, as he and his buddies walked into Quad Recording Studios in Times Square so Tupac could help out a lesser-known performer by rapping on his CD. Hanging out just inside the studio lobby was a man, while another stood outside, both wearing Army fatigues. They jumped all four people, grabbed $5,000 worth of jewelry and chains off Stretch’s neck, then yanked the jewelry from Tupac’s neck.

One of the men grabbed Tupac’s hand and pulled two rings from it. Tupac was shot only after he went for his gun, and they weren’t fatal shots. The perpetrators disappeared into the night.

Tupac didn’t know until earlier in the day that he’d be at Quad studios. Singers are often asked to backup other singers and appear on their CDs, so Tupac, for a fee, agreed at the last minute to help an up-and-coming rapper by performing on one of his tracks. That rapper had nothing to do with Rosemond, and neither did Tupac.

And what did Rosemond have to gain by rubbing out Tupac? The answer? Not a thing.

We’re led to believe by Isaac that Rosemond told him to “Find Tupac, steal jewelry off his neck, keep the jewelry, shoot him, and, in return, I’ll pay you $2,500 for doing it. But give me Tupac’s diamond ring for my girlfriend.”

Hooey, I say. Rosemond doesn’t have a motive. But Isaac does, and that’s cooperating with the feds in a drug-related case against Rosemond where Isaac has reportedly been named as an accomplice. To get himself off the hook, he’s ‘fessing up. Rosemond’s no angel, and I’m not defending him. But facts are facts.

Robbery was the obvious motive for whoever robbed and shot Tupac. Police, however, didn’t check pawnshops for the stolen jewelry and closed the case 30 days later because, as NYPD Detective George Nagy told me two years after the shooting, “Tupac and his attorney wouldn’t talk to us.” So police closed the case.

As for Rosemond, who’s had a federal warrant out for his arrest on drug charges since mid May, was recently taken into custody by federal agents as he left the W Hotel in New York City’s Union Square. Rosemond’s attorney, Jeffrey Lichtman, called the shooting accusation a "flat-out lie," telling Reuters news service that Isaac invented the story to help authorities build their case against Rosemond.

"This is not [Isaac] being a good soldier or clearing his conscience. It's a desperate 17-year-old attempt to reduce his sentence," Lichtman said.

As for 46-year-old Isaac, he’s serving life in prison, for an unrelated murder conviction, at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, which houses federal inmates. NYPD’s Paul Browne told CBS News that his department was looking into Isaac’s claim, and, if it’s determined it’s legitimate, police will interview Isaac.

I’ll be flabbergasted if it pans out. If a man walks into a police station and says, “I shot Tupac Shakur,” the obvious answer would be, “Prove it.” The burden, in this case, lies with the person making the claim.

Scott is the author of The Killing of Tupac Shakur.

New Evidence in the Cold Case Murder of Susan Berman

noreply@blogger.com (Cathy Scott) — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 23:45:00 +0000

By Cathy Scott

New evidence in the murder of writer Susan Berman has come to light, causing the Los Angeles Police Department department to reopen the decades' old case.

New York magazine, where Susan once worked as a writer, is reporting that police are closing in on millionaire Robert Durst as their number one suspect. "We would like to question him," LAPD homicide detective Paul Coulter, the lead investigator in the Berman case, told the magazine. "We would love nothing more than to sit down with Durst and talk to him about this, There's nobody else we're looking at."

Susan Berman, daughter of Las Vegas mobster Davie Berman, was found murdered on Christmas Eve 2000 in her Benedict Canyon home. She had been shot in the back of the head with a single 9mm bullet. There was no sign of forced entry or a burglary, and police determined that someone Susan knew had killed her.

From the start Durst, who befriended Susan when they were classmates at the University of California, Los Angeles, was suspected in the killing. Durst has denied any involvement in Susan's murder.

Coulter told the magazine it's been difficult finding Durst so detectives can interview him. "He's like the silver fox," Coulter said. "He knows what's going on."

How a True Crime Writer Protects Herself Against Scammers

noreply@blogger.com (Cathy Scott) — Fri, 13 May 2011 22:01:00 +0000

By Cathy Scott
(Reprinted from ForbesWoman.com)

Wanna-be scammers sometimes jump out of the shadows to steal authors’ identities to pull off their dirty deeds. Case in point was my own recent encounter with a man who said he was developing the definitive biopic about Tupac Shakur.

That’s been done. Over and over. But no one’s quite hit the mark yet. So, I talked to Mr. Scam, who said he was a producer. The first red flag was his request that I do interviews for his documentary.

I’m used to being at the flip side of a reporter’s notebook, taking down interview notes and quotes. I’m also used to being on the lens side of the camera as the interviewee, especially when it comes to the Tupac story, because of my book, The Killing of Tupac Shakur, about the murder case.

What I’m not used to is being asked to do a producer’s work. They land the interviews, hire the video crew, nail down a studio and on-site locations for the interviews, and typically get on-air talent to conduct the interviews.

But scammer was eager. He didn’t stop calling. Or e-mailing. He wanted to get me immediately signed to a contract–for what, it wasn’t made clear. What did become clear was his burning desire to use my name as part of his project.

How to Spot a Scammer

Unlike other producers who have contacted me over the years, this one didn’t offer his background or even the name of his company. I learned that myself through a simple Internet search. A tap of the Google “send” button turned up a disturbing recent past. He’d been arrested and charged in a multi-million-dollar Ponzi scheme (think Madoff) bilking people and companies out of millions for investments in projects and land deals as illusory as the fabled swampland in Florida.

My scammer’s new con was the promise of a documentary that would never be made using an author’s name to lend it credibility. The author being offered the starring role in that scam was me. In the meantime, my personal predator had already been living large on the backs of others running an old-fashioned con.

FBI to Author – 'He’s Desperate – Give Him Wide Berth'

An FBI agent, when reached about the case, said the poser was desperate. He’d lost his house and had run out of cash. He was fund-raising his own support. The fed’s advice? “Stay away. And don’t get him angry. You don’t want to be in a confrontation with this guy.”

As business women, we all have to watch for red lights, green lights, and red flags. Not everybody is good at recognizing them. I’m a skeptic at heart. I’ve been in the business of crime news too long not to be. And it’s not just little fish that get fried. Even the big kids occasionally get scammed. Witness the recent porn site ad scam that AT&T and Verizon fell for.

Here’s how I protect myself from scammers. Recognize the red flags, do your research, and consult with law enforcement.

For Mr. Producer, I have some very public advice: Quit e-mailing, quit texting, quit calling. I know who you are and what you’re trying to pull. Don’t use my name to plan your crime.

Is Vegas Mayoral Candidate Carolyn Goodman More Than a 'Mouthpiece' for Husband Oscar?

noreply@blogger.com (Cathy Scott) — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 17:07:00 +0000

By Cathy Scott

Word on the street is that the campaign headquarters of Carolyn Goodman on Tuesday's election night in Sin City was peppered with mobsters. Old-time mobsters.

"At least 10 were there," the source said.

It's not surprising, considering Carolyn's husband is Oscar Goodman, the self-proclaimed "Mouthpiece for the Mob" who, as a criminal defense attorney, represented the likes of Chicago mobster Anthony "Tony the Ant" Spilotro, once suspected of more than 20 killings, and Philadelphia mob underboss Philip Leonetti. Oscar, currently the mayor of Las Vegas whose three-term sting is expiring, has been vocal about his hopes for his wife succeeding him as mayor.

Back in June of 1999, Oscar Goodman was elected mayor of this gambling mecca.At the time, he said he was proud of his past: "I'm not ashamed of anything." During Goodman's tenure as mayor, he changed his popular "mouthpiece" moniker to "America's Happiest Mayor."

On Tuesday, his wife won 37 percent of the vote, with Chris Giunchigliani coming in second, inching closer to her husband's aspirations for her.

Whisperings, however, at the Goodmans' election-night party, according to the source, were that Carolyn might have been able to pull off an early first in the primary based on name recognition, but when it comes to winning in the run off, it won't be as simple.

That's because Giunchigliani, currently a county commissioner, is known as a politician for the people who runs grassroots campaigns. The personable Carolyn Goodman, on the other hand, is new to politics other than as first lady of Las Vegas for the last 12 years. Mrs. Goodman is more recognized as the founder of a private school, known as a top college prep academy where people with money send their kids

"I am running against a name, let’s put it that way," Chris recently told The Washington Post." But I think the public recognizes that the time for that type of leadership style has passed."

Now it's up to the voters. Chris, 57, and Carolyn, 72, will face each other again on June 7 in a run-off election.

Photos courtesy of the candidates' campaign websites and philly.com.

Remembering Notorious B.I.G.

noreply@blogger.com (Cathy Scott) — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 06:54:00 +0000

by Cathy Scott

"My son's albums, to me, are a celebration of his life." Voletta Wallace, a couple of years after her son's murder on March 9, 1997, said those words in a telephone interview about the murder of Biggie Smalls. She's proud of what her son accomplished in his short life but frustrated that his murder remains unsolved.

Fourteen years after the slaying, the music of Biggie Smalls–a k a Christopher Wallace–is as big as ever. But his murder doesn't appear any closer to being solved than it was shortly after his murder following a VIBE magazine party outside the Petersen Automotive Museum, in Los Angeles, on the eve of the release of Biggie's double-disc album, ironically titled "Life After Death."

No one knows what else Biggie, a New York-based rapper who performed as The Notorious B.I.G., would have accomplished had he not been cut down that fateful March night. He was embraced by his Brooklyn community and rap fans worldwide. What we do know is that Biggie's music, after his death, topped the charts and sold millions of CDs. Like Tupac Shakur before him, Smalls is bigger in death than in life. Biggie was known for his semi-autobiographical lyrics and storytelling and his easy style of rap.

Shakur was killed in Las Vegas six months before Smalls in what some have called eerily similar drive-by shootings. Biggie and Tupac unfortunately became tragic victims of the culture of violence depicted in their lyrics.

Smalls, who died at 24 years old, had been mentoring younger rappers, including hip-hop singer Lil' Kim. On the 14th anniversary of the shooting, Lil' Kim posted her sentiments on Twitter: "On this very day a great soul was laid to rest. Now on this very day we celebrate the rebirth of a beautiful Life! R.I.P Biggie Baby."

Smalls' record producer, Sean "P Diddy" Combs, also took to the pages of Twitter to remember his friend: "Today is #BIGGIEDAY–send me all your videos, links, photos, exclusive content. ALL things BIGGIE so I can tell the world!!"

Spreading the word about her son is music to Mrs. Wallace's ears, to keep her son's legacy alive. But, while Biggie's music keeps his memory on the forefront, his mother, a single mom who worked as a pre-school teacher to support her son, holds out hope his killer (composite sketch, right) will one day be found and brought to justice. Despite the length of time without a named suspect (although a task force in L.A. has been, for several months, looking into the cold case), she keeps the faith.

"I'm not only hoping," Mrs. Wallace told me, "but I am praying that they catch the dog who killed my son. I can't wait. I know that's a trip [to Los Angeles] I'm waiting to take ... to look the murderer in the face."

Cathy Scott's book, The Murder of Biggie Smalls, is a biographical and true crime account of his life and death.

Reprinted from Women in Crime Ink

Smoke and Mirrors: The Truth About Las Vegas

noreply@blogger.com (Cathy Scott) — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 06:42:00 +0000

by Cathy Scott

Watching Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman’s indignation over recent advice by President Barack Obama to a New Hampshire audience to not waste cash in Las Vegas was reminiscent of a similarly indignant Goodman a decade earlier.

Goodman, a former criminal defense attorney and self-described “mouthpiece for the mob,” spent 35 years defending the nation’s most notorious underworld figures. His clients included mobsters Meyer Lansky, Anthony "Tony The Ant" Spilotro and Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal, the latter two portrayed in the film Casino by actors Joe Pesci and Robert DeNiro. Goodman, also in the film, played himself–a lawyer for the mob.

So, it came as a surprise in 1999 when Goodman tried to deny the mob’s existence in Las Vegas. It was during Goodman’s mayoral run, when he issued a statement in the midst of a colorful Las Vegas trial of two reputed Mafiosi charged in connection with the 1997 execution-style murder of another gangster, Herbert “Fat Herbie” Blitzstein. The trial spotlighted the very kind of mob activity that officials, other than Goodman, had insisted, year after year, no longer existed in Las Vegas.

It started in the early 1990s, when the Nevada Gaming Commission released the first of several statements assuring the public that the FBI had forced the last of the mob out of Las Vegas in the 1980s. That was not true, of course. Goodman himself had represented Spilotro in a mob trial in the mid-1980s, shortly before Spilotro was buried alive and left for dead in an Indiana cornfield. Blitzstein was a co-defendant with Spilotro in that trial. After Spilotro’s murder, Blitzstein pleaded guilty and went to prison. He was released in the early 1990s and returned to Las Vegas, picking up where he had left off.

The 62-year-old Blitzstein ran a downtown auto-repair shop that fronted for his rackets. Authorities said he ran loan-shark and insurance-fraud racketeering operations out of the shop.

In January 1997, Blitzstein was gunned down in his town house. Federal prosecutors later contended that mob families in Los Angeles and Buffalo, N.Y., had ordered Blitzstein’s hit so they could take control of his business.

Then, in May 1999, Goodman, as a mayoral candidate, issued a press release declaring the streets of the city free of traditional organized crime.

"For the last 15 years," Goodman said, "there hasn't been a mob presence here."

Coincidentally or not, Goodman issued that statement from his law office, which was around the corner from the U.S. District courthouse where the Blitzstein murder-related trial was well underway. Testimony in that case, which was heavily covered by the media, related to the life-and-death saga of Herbert Blitzstein–who had been Spilotro's right-hand man–provided new details about Las Vegas street rackets. For example, the 12-count racketeering indictment handed down in the case named 10 defendants charged with offenses ranging from Mafia-related murder-for-hire to racketeering.

The trial surrounding Blitzstein’s murder, which ended with most of the defendants pleading out to lesser crimes, was the last Mafia-related trial in Las Vegas.

Blitzstein’s murder also marked the last mob hit in Sin City. But don't tell Oscar Goodman. We'll just keep it between us.

Reprinted from Women in Crime Ink.

Who Killed Dawn Viens?

noreply@blogger.com (Cathy Scott) — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 04:00:00 +0000

Who Killed Dawn Viens?: by Cathy Scott "This week, investigators, working with a crew of firefighters and coroner's office personnel, used jackhammers to dig up the ..."

'The Millionaire's Wife'

noreply@blogger.com (Cathy Scott) — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 07:41:00 +0000

by Cathy Scott

On a rainy morning in the fall of 1990, a gunman, in broad daylight, caught up with George Kogan as George walked home from a Manhattan Upper East Side market. The shooter pumped three slugs into his back. Seven hours later, George was dead.

From the start, the prime suspect was the estranged wife of George Kogan, because, in part, George had $4 million worth of insurance on his life, and Barbara was the beneficiary. Yet, it would take nearly two decades to solve the murder. George, who had turned 49 the month before the killing, was gunned down as he approached the lobby doors of his East 69th Street apartment building, where he lived with his young girlfriend.

Manuel Martinez, an attorney with a small law practice who mostly handled eviction cases, once represented Barbara and eventually was charged and convicted of hiring a hit man to kill Barbara’s husband. It 's a love triangle and a hit-for-hire, and the story fascinated me.

It's also a sad story, because, in the end, everyone lost, including George's two sons, who were in college at the time of the murder, and who lost their father to murder and, ultimately, their mother to prison.

Nineteen years long years after the death of her husband, Barbara Susan Kogan was indicted for the murder of her husband, but not until she had spent every penny of the insurance payout, the last of which went toward her defense.9I’ve spent the last year piecing together this book. It’s titled THE MILLIONAIRE'S WIFE: The True Story of a Real Estate Tycoon, his Beautiful Young Mistress, and a Marriage that Ended in Murder. And while it is my eighth book, it is one of the toughest I’ve ever written.

True crime books, my friend and colleague Kathryn Casey recently reminded me, are not easy to write. As a journalist, I’ve been trained to chase the story, go to the scene, find sources, get documents, land interviews--anything and everything to flesh out the story. True crime books take real perseverance, especially in cases that are about to go to trial and when those on either side of the case are skittish about talking.

I was scheduled to interview Barbara, with her attorney, before her arrest. But, soon after, a warrant for her arrest was issued and her attorney instead arranged for her surrender. It was disappointing, and, while difficult, I love a challenge, plus I was lucky.

After I went on a radio show and talked about the case and after posting or two an article updating the case on Women in Crime Ink, family members on both sides of the case contacted me. I also was able to speak several times with the deputy district attorney as well as three defense attorneys. And a generous reporter who had covered the crime 19 years early shared with me what he recalled. And a doorman at George’s building, where George had been killed nearly two decades earlier, was particularly helpful and walked me through the crime scene. Several people at the courthouse were helpful as well, as were a couple of NYPD police officers. And E.W. Count, a crime writer in New York City, on two occasions became my eyes and ears in a Manhattan courtroom.

For the research part of books, I approach them in the same way I do news stories--digging for clues, links, and, especially, documentation and confirmations via paperwork and those I interview. For every book, I invariably contact mortuary personnel and verify college degrees with universities; this case was no different. Thank goodness the records were fairly easy to find, despite the passage of time. Fact-checking our own stories is part of the deal.

For newspaper and magazine articles, I got into Lexis-Nexis to pull up the original articles and, at the same time, stumbled on some relevant federal court documents. Early on, writer/author Sue Russell pulled a couple of articles from Lexis-Nexis for me. After that, I did pay-as-you-go searches (a great service for research). The one thing, however, I could not find was George Kogan’s obituary. I knew there had to be one, and, ultimately, getting creative with search words (“slaying” instead of “murder” worked in this case), I found it. It was a real prize, because it was loaded with the detail I had been looking for--when and where George was buried, who officiated, who attended, and who did not.

When it came to police and court records, that got tricky. As soon as Barbara appeared in court, I filed a Freedom of Information Act form; it was ignored. So, with the help of attorneys, a defendant’s family members and a journalism student working on a class paper (and whose professor was friends with the defense), I was able to get the complete court files, trial transcripts, copies of depositions, a transcript of a surveillance telephone conversation, statements from witnesses from the scene of the crime, a list of witnesses and evidence, and a roster of jurors.

Then, the reading began. I pored through documents. It became a matter of learning who the characters and players were--and there were lots. Because two defendants were charged three years apart, it made the story more complicated. So I tried to boil it down and tell the story chronologically, as it had unfolded.

Deciding where to start a book is always a challenge. With The Murder of Biggie Smalls (a k a Notorious B.I.G., I began with Biggie, at age 15, sitting in a Brooklyn police precinct, crying for his mother after an officer detained Biggie and a friend for questioning to see if they were witnesses to a murder in a Bed-Stuy neighborhood. To me, that scene at the precinct spoke volumes about Biggie, whose real name was Christopher Wallace. He was not the street thug, like Tupac Shakur, who came of age on the mean streets of the Jungle housing project in Oakland, Californai. Biggie, conversely, was a mama’s boy, and his mother was a school teacher who sent Biggie to Jamaica every year to spend the summer with his grandfather, an ocean away from Brooklyn.

In Murder of a Mafia Daughter, after I went to victim Susan Berman’s Beverly Hills home, in Benedict Canyon, and met a neighbor who’d been the one to alert police that something was awry next door, I began the book with the neighbor awakening to Susan’s dogs running loose, on Christmas Eve morning, in his front yard.

With the Kogan case, after traveling to New York City several times, the way the killer stalked George as he made his way home from a neighborhood market became a vivid picture to me, and I began the book with the morning he died.

I love the cover of this book, because it captures the feel of that fateful morning. So, it is with pride and pleasure that I give you, the reader, a sneak peek at the cover of The Millionaire’s Wife, released here, on Women in Crime Ink. When the book comes out later this year, I’ll give you a heads up.

The Kingston Trio: 'Just 3 guys standing on stage with their guitars'

noreply@blogger.com (Cathy Scott) — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 08:24:00 +0000

By Cathy Scott

I met Nick Reynolds, a founding member of The Kingston Trio, when I interviewed him in the summer of 1990. I was the business editor at the time of the La Jolla Light newspaper, and the band was having a reunion concert there, so I covered it.

The Kingston Trio, circa 1960

I called Nick to set up an interview, and he invited me to his Coronado home. Once there, we sat down in his family room, surrounded by Kingston Trio memorabilia and musical instruments. His then-girlfriend was there too. My sister Cordelia, brother-in-law Bob, and I attended the group's reunion concert, part of a two-dozen cities tour, this one held at the Hyatt Regency La Jolla at the Aventine, outside on the tennis courts.

Backing the band was the San Diego Chamber Festival Orchestra. Our seats were up front and you could see the emotion in the band members' faces as they performed. "When we go into a ballad and the orchestra comes in behind us, tears come to my eyes," Nick told me. "It's powerful -- not just three guys standing on a stage with their guitars."

So it was with surprise and pleasure this week to see The Kingston Trio receive a Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award for their work. It was long overdue and well-deserved. They were a pioneering folk group and leaders of the ’50s folk revival best known for the chart-topping songs "Tom Dooley," as well as "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" and "Tijuana Jail."

What struck me about Nick, who played a tenor guitar, was his enthusiasm for the group's music, even after all those years. He strummed his guitar during a break in the interview. In the room was memorabilia from the days when the group was in its heyday. A couple of The Kingston Trio members switched off over the years, but Nick Reynolds, Bob Shane and John Stewart were the best-known lineup. I saw Nick again a few months later at the Honolulu, Oahu, airport, when we coincidentally ran into each other while waiting at the gate for a flight back to San Diego.

Nick didn't live to see the group's Grammy honor. He passed away in 2008 from chronic heart disease. Bob Shane, the only surviving original member, accepted the award on behalf of The Kingston Trio. Nick would have been proud.

___

Sambalatte: Where Everybody Knows Your Name

noreply@blogger.com (Cathy Scott) — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 17:06:00 +0000

By Cathy Scott

There's a new place in town, where everybody knows your name. It's called Sambalatte.

Step inside this caffee lounge and espresso bar, and you’re welcomed by your first name. The baristas and owners know everyone, and the guests know just about everybody too. It reminds me of the popular TV show “Cheers” and the fictional neighborhood bar, where everybody knew your name. “Cheers” was a welcoming watering hole, a place for friendship and comaradarie.

Now, Sambalatte is the new “Cheers” and the place to hang out in Vegas.

Since it opened last fall, it's been embraced by the community, and the media have discovered it as well, including The New York Post, the local NPR affiliate, Fox 5, and a Brazilian TV station. Haute Living ranked Sambalatte No. 1 in its Top 5 coffee shops in Las Vegas. Word is spreading all over Twitter and Facebook too. And Seven magazine wrote, because of the micro-roasted varieties, “this just might be the freshest, most distinctive cup of coffee you’ve ever had in Las Vegas.”

Owners Sheila and Luiz have taken the time to not only focus on the brews, but on customers too by offering quiet attention and friendly smiles, and creating a cheerful atmosphere for people to stop in for their morning organic java and French pastry or sit at a table and sip while reading the paper. They’ve created an upscale boutique coffee lounge with a welcoming atmosphere that’s tough to beat. There’s a European feel about the place, found mostly in coffeehouses in New York and San Francisco.

Located on the West Side, in Fashion Village Boca Park, Sambalatte is already filling a niche in the area. The owners have created an environment that welcomes students, entrepreneurs, business people, and friends for a place to meet up by offering comfortable couches, tables and wireless Internet. The mezzanine upstairs is a favorite for some visitors. It’s already being called the best place in town to spot celebrities. But that list also includes local lawyers, cops, journalists, and dancers and performers from the casinos on the Las Vegas Strip.

When the sun is out, people flock to the outdoor umbrella tables and bring their dogs with them (there's an outdoor doggie station too). The shelves are stocked with books, magazines, board and table games, the morning paper, as well as an alt-weekly newspaper, and children are welcome. By nightfall on Friday and Saturday nights, it’s a coffee lounge with live music.

Urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg, in his 1989 book The Great Good Place, called such spots “third places,” where they’re not work and they’re not home. Instead, they’re “the heart of a community’s social vitality, the grassroots of democracy,” he wrote. In his book, he examines gathering places and reminds us how important they still are.

Sambalatte is just that: a great gathering place, where guests feel connected. Located between the Cheesecake Factory and Kona Grill, some stop by for a short time. Others go in with their Kindles, Nooks, laptops, netbooks and iPads, to work while sipping a white mocha or a chai latte, or lunching on an Italian sandwich or Caprese on a bagette (my favorite), yogurt, or a fruit-and-cheese plate. Fresh-baked goods are made in-house daily, so there's a lot to choose from.

Opening Sambalatte was a good move, choosing a corner of Boca Park Fashion Village that has an almost-village feel to it, with a waterfall, a meandering walkway and greenery. The place caught on quickly.

Like “Cheers” and its characters, who regularly hung out for the camaraderie, Sambalatte has become the place to be, where everybody knows your name. You can smell the fresh-roasted aroma before you walk in, and, somehow, the world seems better for it.

Take a virtual tour, with this video, and see for yourself:

Sambalatte Torrefazione

750 South Rampart Blvd

Las Vegas, Nevada 89145

702.272.2333

Book Signing for Vegas Author

noreply@blogger.com (Cathy Scott) — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 05:21:00 +0000

By Cathy Scott

One of my favorite things is being around other writers, especially fellow authors. Such was the case on a recent Saturday when I attended my friend Matt O’Brien’s book signing at Barnes & Noble. It was for his latest book, My Week at the Blue Angel.

I got there just a few minutes after the event started, and already two people were buying books.

Then, an author friend of Matt’s–JJ Wylie–showed up, as did local photographer Bill Hughes and prolific author Bill Branon.

I hadn’t seen either Bills in a few years, so it was like a homecoming. Bill Hughes took the photos that are featured in Matt’s latest book, as well as the cover art, and I worked with Bill a few times back when I freelanced for Las Vegas CityLife.

Matt explained that the blue angel pictured on the cover, taken by Bill, is prominently standing at the seedy hotel on East Fremont Street–in Las Vegas’s red-light district–and is a 10-feet high piece of art standing in stark contrast to its environs.

Branon is a fellow author at my first publishing house, Huntington Press. And Branon has left an impressive list of books in his wake, including his first, Let Us Prey, which made The New York Times' 1992 Notable Books of the Year–a large feat, considering, before it was picked up by HarperCollins, he'd self-published it.

Congrats to Matt on a successful signing, and a good time with old friends.

Photo of Matt courtesy of JJ Wylie.

What Happens in Sin City Doesn't Stay Here

noreply@blogger.com (Cathy Scott) — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 16:07:00 +0000

Here's a twist -- and exactly the type of news the public relations machine behind Vegas doesn't like to see.

Still, it's tough to keep this one off the front pages, after a New York college student, according to a report in the New York Daily News, sued a Las Vegas escort service claiming the prostitute he hired did not stay with him for the agreed-upon amount of time.

Hubert Blackman would like his $275 back, plus an additional $1.8 million for his trouble and damages for what he has called a "tragic event."

Blackman claims in his suit against Las Vegas Exclusive Personals that, during a vacation to Las Vegas last December, he paid $155 for a stripper to visit his room at the Stratosphere Hotel and paid an additional $120 to have her perform a sex act on him, the News reported. She did a strip dance and performed a sex act, but left after 30 minutes.

Upon his arrival home in New York City, he filed his suit in Manhattan Federal Court claiming that “an escort did an illegal sexual act on me during her paid service to me” and “I almost had gotten arrested.”He's also claiming he now needs medical treatment for a mental condition related to the incident.

But Blackman, in his suit, said he paid the woman to stay with him for an hour. The problem arose when she left after just 30 minutes. So he called the escort company and requested his money back. When they refused to give him a refund, he then called Las Vegas Metro Police, only to have officers threaten him with arrest because prostitution is illegal in the city.

It may be illegal in the city, but it's overlooked in hotel rooms, where hotel staff are very much aware of the comings and goings of high-priced escorts and paying visits to guests' hotel rooms. It's a lucrative business, and an old one, in Strip and downtown hotels. The phone books and online directories are full of so-called escort service companies.

Blackman, who said the woman suggested the sex act, claims he was unaware of the law.

AC360° Cold Case: 'Mystery still surrounds rappers' deaths'

noreply@blogger.com (Cathy Scott) — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 19:39:00 +0000

By Cathy Scott

A couple weeks ago, I sat down with CNN's anchor/reporter Ted Rowlands and producer Michael Cary to talk about the Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls murders. Here is Anderson Cooper's resulting blog post.

Ted Rowlands and Michael Cary
Reprinted from CNN's AC360 Blogs

Los Angeles, California (CNN) - In the late '90s, two of hip hop’s biggest stars—Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace (aka Biggie Smalls, Notorious B.I.G.) were gunned down six months apart in eerily similar fashions.

According to witnesses, both were passengers in vehicles, stopped at busy intersections, but police never received solid leads to arrest a suspect for either of the seemingly targeted shootings.

On September 7, 1996, Marion “Suge” Knight, then head of Death Row Records, was driving Tupac Shakur, his multi-platinum recording artist, to a party in Las Vegas after attending the Mike Tyson-Bruce Sheldon boxing match. Their security team was in separate vehicles. While stopped at a busy intersection just off the Las Vegas Strip, witnesses say a white Cadillac pulled alongside, and a gunman in the backseat fired multiple rounds from a semiautomatic gun into Knight’s vehicle.

With Shakur bleeding in the passenger seat, Knight made a U-turn, driving over a street median, and ultimately coming to a stop blocks away.

Las Vegas bicycle police nearby, who heard the shooting, followed Knight’s vehicle. The white Cadillac sped away.

Cathy Scott, who was one of the first reporters on the scene and author of The Killing of Tupac Shakur, tells CNN the failure to secure the actual scene of the shooting and interview witnesses immediately doomed the investigation. Las Vegas police said witnesses were not forthcoming with detailed information.

There are several possible motives for the murder.

One theory is that the shooting was payback for a fight caught on casino surveillance video three hours before the shooting. The man who was beaten that night, Orlando Anderson, told CNN a year later that he had nothing to do with the crime. Eight months after that interview, Anderson was killed in what police described as a gang shoot-out in Los Angeles.

Another theory focuses on the “gangsta” lifestyle of the hip hop world at the time and a publicized East Coast-West Coast rap war between Knight’s Death Row Records in Los Angeles and Bad Boy Entertainment in New York, which represented rapper Biggie Smalls. Shakur and Smalls had been embroiled in verbal sparring through their music.

Six months after Shakur’s shooting, Smalls came to California to promote an upcoming album entitled “Life After Death” and told a San Francisco radio station that he wanted to “squash” rumors of the East Coast-West Coast battle.

Four days later, on March 9, 1997, when leaving a music industry party at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, Smalls was shot and killed. Los Angeles police said a lone gunmen pulled alongside the suburban and opened fire on Smalls, who was in the passenger seat.

The main theory behind Smalls’ shooting: payback for the slaying of Shakur six months earlier.

Retired Los Angeles Police Detective Russell Poole, who worked on the Smalls’ case, tells CNN that he believes Suge Knight was behind the murder, even though the Death Row Records’ boss was serving time on a probation violation at the time.

“Suge Knight ordered the hit,” Poole says, adding that he believes it was arranged by Reggie Wright Jr., who headed security for Death Row Records.

Poole goes even further, stating that he believes Knight was behind the shooting of Tupac Shakur as well. Poole says Shakur’s bodyguards told him that the rapper planned to sever ties with Knight’s Death Row Records which could have cost the company millions of dollars.

Reggie Wright Jr. told CNN he had nothing to do with either murder, and Suge Knight has repeatedly said he had nothing to do with the crime.

But two months after Shakur’s killing, Knight talked to ABC News and one quote seems to follow the former record company executive: “If you knew who killed Tupac, would you tell police?” To which Knight responded: “Absolutely not. It’s not my job. I don’t get paid to solve homicides. I don’t get paid to tell on people.”

Both the Los Angeles and Las Vegas police departments say the investigations are still open.

The Cool 'Big Book of Social Media'

noreply@blogger.com (Cathy Scott) — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 06:08:00 +0000

By Cathy Scott

Adriel Hampton's review of The Big Book of Social Media: Case Studies, Stories, Perspectives is now out on Creating Government 2.0 and Social Media site -- and it's a good one.

The many contributors who make up the anthology, Hampton says, are "the product of 20 media conferences."

Indeed. I spoke at three of those conferences and loved every minute of them. But little did I know that a book would follow. A big book.

I learned about Bob Fine's first Twitter conference, beginning mid-2009, when my sister, Cordelia Mendoza, spoke at the first Cool Twitter Conference, held at Croce's Restaurant & Jazz Bar in the heart of downtown San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter. How cool was that, to have the conference at Croce's? The energy in the room, Cordelia tweeted, "was contagious." I was more than curious. So I contacted Bob and signed on for the next conference.

Bob Fine and Cordelia Mendoza

I met him for the first time at the House of Blues in West Hollywood, where my friend, attorney Vickie Pynchon, also spoke. I was hooked. What else would Bob come up with? First, Croce's, and now, the House of Blues.

Well, when he invited me to speak at the CTC conference at The Playwright Tavern in New York City's Theatre District, I couldn't resist. I was going to be in the city just before the conference, so I added a couple of days to my trip to attend. Again, how cool was that? Bob had an uncanny knack of being able to land hip venues-for-a-day as the conferences winded their way from city to city.

I spoke again at the Orange County, California, conference on the continuing tour from coast to coast, as well as internationally. Cordelia was the official Twitter coordinator, gathering tons of steam and followers as she tweeted, quoting speakers live from The O.C. And while the venues were awesome, so were the presenters, who were fired up to share their passion for getting out the word via social media.

A few months after the Cool Twitter Conferences had finished its run, Bob invited me to contribute to his Big Book of Social Media.

Nothing Bob Fine does is small, including this book, so it shouldn't have come as a surprise that he had a big, ambitious idea to incorporate many of the people who had spoken at his conferences -- tweeters, Facebookers and social media hounds from all walks of life who were successfully using new media in a variety of ways. As an author, I know what it takes to put together a book. My sister, too, was invited to write a chapter for the book about how she uses social media to help spur sales at Cottage Antiques, her shop in Ocean Beach, a coastal town in San Diego. With so many contributors, would it actually happen?

But Bob, just like he had with the conferences, pulled it off, and The Big Book, as Hampton writes in his review, "collects the best thoughts of an amazing cast, from marketers to true-crime novelists to activists and small business owners."

Hampton quotes from my sister's chapter, which is titled Something Old, Something New: "Antique store owner Cordelia Mendoza writes of 'broadening the market for antiques through social engagement,' going far beyond the typical listing of for-sale items to photograph, blog and tweet changes in displays, unusual inventory and visits by prominent customers."

Combine 42 of the best-of-the-best who spoke at the Cool Twitter Conferences, as well as at the Cool Gravity Summit last year, roll them into The Big Book of Social Media, and it's a star combination

Thanks, Bob, for a great run of better-than-cool conferences and an even cooler Big Book of Social Media. I'm proud to be a part of it.

The 2010 Darwin Awards

noreply@blogger.com (Cathy Scott) — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 00:08:00 +0000

It's that magical time of year when the annual Darwin Awards are bestowed, honoring the least evolved among us. As those who put the list together each year say, the Darwin Awards are about "honoring those who improve the species by accidentally removing themselves from it! This award is usually bestowed posthumously." Happy New Year, and enjoy!

Here is this year's glorious winner: 1. When his 38-caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach, California, would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked.

And now, the honorable mentions:

2. The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat cutting machine and after a little shopping around, submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company expecting negligence sent out one of its men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine and he also lost a finger. The chef's claim was approved.

3. A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman had taken the space.
Understandably, he shot her.

4. After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies. The deception wasn't discovered for three days.

5. An American teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he received the injuries, the lad told police that he was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.

6. A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer -- $15.

7. Seems an Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly.. He decided that he'd just throw a cinder block through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder block and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder block bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. The liquor store window was made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on videotape.

8. As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store, a man grabbed her purse, and ran. The clerk immediately called 911 and the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher. Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the car and drove back to the store. The thief was then taken out of the car and told to stand there for a positive ID. To which, he replied, "Yes, officer, that's her. That's the lady I stole the purse from."

9. The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan, at 5 a.m., flashed a gun and demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn't open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren't available for breakfast. The man, frustrated, walked away. [*A 5-STAR STUPIDITY AWARD WINNER]

10. When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motorhome parked on a Seattle street by sucking on a hose, he got much more than he bargained for. Police arrived at the scene to find a very sick man curled up next to the motorhome near spilled sewage. A police spokesman said that the man admitted to trying to steal gasoline, but he'd plugged his siphon hose into the RV's sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges, saying it was the best laugh he'd ever had.

In the interest of bettering mankind, please share these with friends and family, unless, of course, one of these individuals by chance is a distant relative or long, lost friend. In that case, be glad they are distant and hope they remain lost. Remember: They walk among us, they can reproduce, and they do!

A Personal Tale of Identity Theft

noreply@blogger.com (Cathy Scott) — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 07:53:00 +0000

by Cathy Scott

Two days before Thanksgiving, I was the victim of a short-lived identity theft.

I’d gone to the supermarket that evening and spent $75, including dinner-to-go from the salad bar. When I arrived at the grocery, I grabbed my wallet, not my purse, from my car and went inside to shop.

When I walked out of the store after shopping, I had my wallet and keys in one hand and two paper shopping bags in the other. When I reached my car, I put the bags down to press the unlock button on my keyless door opener. Then I picked up the bags and put them in the car. A large SUV was parked next to my car and I had to squeeze in between the two to slip into the passenger seat, which distracted me. I got in, put on my seat belt and headed home.

A few minutes later, once in my driveway, I realized I did not know where my wallet was. I searched the grocery bags, under the car seats, next to them, in the center console, on the floor, in the back. No sign of the wallet. I got back into my car and hurried back to the store. Not more than 15 minutes had elapsed. I parked near where I had just been and checked the blacktop parking lot as I walked toward the store.

The checkout clerk didn’t have my wallet, and no one had turned it in at the service counter. “It must be in my car somewhere, “ I told a store clerk.

Inside my wallet was an ATM/Visa credit card, my driver’s license, my athletic club card, a Barnes and Noble membership card, and some business cards from other people. No money was in the wallet except for coins. I don’t typically keep photos in my wallet.

When I finally walked into my house, two messages had already been left on my phone from the bank. “This is the fraud unit at Wells Fargo Bank,” the message began. “Please call us immediately to verify some recent activity on your ATM card.”

Oh, no, I said to myself. Someone has my wallet.

I called the bank's fraud unit (open 24 hours) and talked to an employee. She asked, “Did you authorize anyone to use your card?”

“No,” I answered.

“Did you lose your card?”

“Yes,” I said. “About 40 minutes ago.”

“Someone just tried to make another purchase a few minutes ago. We flagged it,” she said.

Whoever picked up my wallet in the parking lot had a decision to make. “Should I walk the wallet into the store? Or should I keep it?”

The person kept it. And then she got very busy. (I say “she” because the person used my Nevada driver’s license as identification for her ensuing shopping spree.)

She made her first stop down the street at Grumpy’s, a neighborhood gas station, charging $1 on my card. The bank said it looked like a test purchase, to see if she could get away with using my ID. An internal flag went up at the bank, because it was an even dollar--a dead give-away for a fraud purchase to see if the person could pull it off.

To me, it appears the thief was not alone, and here’s why. The second stop on the spending spree, after having success at Grumpy’s, was a Taco Bell drive-thru about two miles away. The total was $23.68. But that apparently was not enough quick food for the thief. She drove back to a strip mall across the street from the supermarket and spent another $23-and-change on fast food.

Next up was a Payless Shoes in the same parking lot. Grand total? $88.

Then, a few doors away from Payless, she went into Target and attempted to purchase $200 worth of electronics. By then, my bank was onto her, flagged the account, and would not pay. But being declined didn’t stop the thief. She proceeded from the electronics department at Target to one of the main checkout registers for another purchase (I don’t know what the price was). She was turned away for that too.

Not to be dissuaded, she walked a few doors up from Target and went into Bed, Bath & Beyond for yet another attempt to buy merchandise with my plastic. At the checkout, the clerk rang up a $5 item. “Declined,” she was told.

The bank employee assured me that I was not responsible for the purchases and asked if I wanted to prosecute. "Absolutely," I said.

The snafu for the thief in this quick-and-dirty shopping trip is that drive-thru restaurants have surveillance cameras that take clear photos of cars--and license plates--as does Grumpy’s, because it’s a gas station with cameras pointed smack-dab at the parking lot and gas pumps. And at each and every place the thief went to, she not only committed fraud by using my bank card, but she presented my driver’s license as an ID. That’s a felonious federal offense of identity theft.

By my count, she committed four counts of theft, three counts of attempted theft (state offenses), and seven counts of felony identity theft. The bank has its own investigators and, by the next morning, had opened a case.

As for me, I had my work cut out for me. I got up early the next morning--Thanksgiving eve--which wasn't how I had planned that morning; I'd intended to spend it and most of the afternoon, writing. Instead, my first stop of the day was the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles.

The banker had told me the night before that I could get a temporary ATM card but that I could not do that without proof of a driver's license. So, I drove to the DMV, where I stood in two lines before I was able to present proof of my identity with an ancient photo ID from a newspaper I’d once worked for, along with my phone bill. Because driver’s licenses are now embedded with a logo, the license was mailed and not immediately available.

With a paper driver’s license in hand and the dated press pass, I drove to the bank to get a temporary ATM card. I answered their security questions so they could access my account. But without a name and account number stamped on it, the card they gave me is only useful in ATM machines, not for debit or credit at stores. It was a step back in time to not-so-long-ago banking.

My third stop was Office Max to pick up a fraud complaint form that was faxed there by my bank. I filled it out and faxed it back. I went to the gym later in the day to work out and have my photo taken for a new gym membership card. I needed something with a current photo on it, and that did the trick.

I blame myself for being in a hurry and careless with my wallet, but I mostly blame the thief who took advantage instead of handing over my wallet to a supermarket employee. Luckily, my wallet didn’t have my Social Security card inside, and I don’t include my Social Security number on my driver’s license, so the thief didn't have access to it. And I also don’t typically keep my checkbook in my wallet, so I didn't have to close out my checking account and open a new one, thank goodness.

My fourth stop was at a department store. With gym and ATM cards, cash and a temporary paper driver's license, I needed something to put them in, so I bought a new wallet.

More than anything, this was a major hassle, an expense to my bank, nominal expense to me but a major inconvenience. Luckily, I wasn’t flying out of town for Thanksgiving, because I wouldn’t have been able to board a plane without identification.

This should be a slam-dunk case for Las Vegas police, given the cameras at the two fast-food restaurants and surveillance at the stores, snapping the woman's photo each time she presented my driver's license to a store clerk. I know there are bigger fish to fry, but it appears, relatively speaking, to be an uncomplicated case to solve, given the strong possibility that at least one of the fast-food cameras camptured the license plate. Plus, each transaction made wth my card was time stamped, as are surveillance photos. It's a matter of matching them up.

That afternoon, I went to Payless Shoes, and the clerk there said the thief showed my driver's license to make the $88 credit purchase. And it was the bank employee who told me, because the card was used for credit (my pin number wasn't in my wallet and the person did not use it as an ATM card), that it's identity theft.

It's been just a few days, but I'm already ultra sensitive about my wallet, as well as my Blackberry, hardly letting them out of my sight when I'm out and about. I don't want it to happen again.

My advice to holiday shoppers is, while you're hitting the stores buying gifts, hang on to your wallets! You never know who's nearby, ready and willing to steal your identity.

Reprinted with permission from Women in Crime Ink.

A sad time for our family with the loss of our sister

noreply@blogger.com (Cathy Scott) — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 19:34:00 +0000

We're writing on our family blog about our sister Sally, who recently passed away. Please click on the photo, below, to go to the blog:

Cathy, Cordelia and Sally

LUST FOR JUSTICE: The Radical Life & Law of J. Tony Serra

noreply@blogger.com (Cathy Scott) — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 16:20:00 +0000

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by Cathy Scott

"His trials have garnered him acclaim as one of the greatest criminal-defense attorneys of the century. He's the white tornado in court, a semantic samyrai, a shaman, a bard, a hero to some, a trickster to others, and always a force to be reckoned with, respected by all." Such is the description of Tony Serra, a renowned, pony-tailed, radical criminal defense attorney in the just-released nonfiction legal biography LUST FOR JUSTICE: The Radical Life & Law of J. Tony Serra.

Courtroom artist, and now author, Paulette Frankl spent 17 years following Serra--and tracking him down--from courtroom to courtroom. LUST FOR JUSTICE is a culmination of those years. It was in one of those courtrooms, this one in Las Vegas, where I first met Paulette.

It was 2000 and I was in Clark County District Court to cover the Ted Binion case--the first of two Binion trials--and Paulette was there to sketch and paint the goings-on for news outlets. We became fast friends. During a dinner downtown near the courthouse after a day in court, I vividly remember Paulette telling me about the book and her work-in-progress. I also remember her saying, "I'm not a writer." She undersold herself; Paulette is every bit a writer with a powerfully descriptive voice, as evidenced in the pages of LUST FOR JUSTICE.

During the Binion prelim hearing for the retrial of defendants Sandra Murphy and Richard Tabish, who were accused of murdering casino heir Binion, I met Tony Serra. He had taken Tabish on as a client after Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz successfully argued before the Nevada Supreme Court for a retrial. Earlier, when a phone call came in to Serra's office asking Tony to consider defending Tabish, Paulette happened to be sitting in Tony's office. "Take the case," Paulette told him. After all, she had first-hand knowledge after sitting through every moment of the first lengthy trial--the biggest trial, which ended in guilty verdicts, Las Vegas had seen in recent history. She believed the defendants needed a lawyer like Tony on their side.

For the second trial, with Tony at the helm, the case ended in murder acquittals for Serra's client, Tabish, as well as co-defendant Murphy. Binion died from an overdose of prescription and street drugs, which Binion had himself purchased. The prosecution, however, charged Tabish and Murphy with forcing the drugs on Binion, despite no physical evidence against them. In the midst of the retrial, with nightly prepping for the next day's proceedings, Serra took time out to attend an evening fundraiser where Paulette's art was featured. Attending the event with Serra was his Binion defense team, Shari Greenberger and Anna Ling.

Paulette Frankl's book, with a foreword by attorney Gerry Spence, had been hatched more than a decade earlier. And while she had interviewed Serra multiple times, the idea and content for the book morphed from her early interviews and Tony's soliloquies to the completed literary work we see today, which vividly covers Serra in action in the courtroom. Yet, Paulette doesn't paint a 100-percent positive portrayal of Serra. She includes the flawed man as well.

Despite his foibles, Serra has a following that reaches far and wide. He was the subject of the 1989 movie True Believer, starring James Woods and Robert Downey, Jr., about a Chinatown (San Francisco) murder case in which Serra won an acquittal for defendant Chol Soo Lee. He also successfully represented Huey Newton, leader of the Black Panther Party in a murder trial and represented individuals from groups as diverse and politically charged as the White Panthers, Hells Angels, Earth First! and New World Liberation Front, cases which included clients clients like Patrick "Hootie" Croy, who was wrongly convicted, as well as Ellie Nesler and Symbionese Liberation Army members Sara Jane Olson, Russell Little and Michael Bortin. Serra won the Trial Lawyer of the Year award in 2003 from Trial Lawyers for Public Justice for his successful litigation of Judi Bari against the FBI.

I am so proud of Paulette and her tireless, nearly two-decade effort in capturing lightning in a bottle and pulling together this beautifully written tome. And I'm proud to call her friend.

LUST FOR JUSTICE is, as are Paulette's paintings, a brilliant work of art. She is, after all, an artist first, and the artist's brush is evident in her words alongside her illustrations of Tony, which are sprinkled throughout the text.

Tony, a self-described "street lawyer," is anti-establishment, taking a vow of poverty early on not to become a rich lawyer off of the backs of those who need a fair hand in the criminal justice system. He drives old cars, wears second-hand suits, and lives weekends with his longtime girlfriend in the sleepy beach town of Bolinas and weekdays in a modest North Beach apartment in San Francisco near his co-op law office. He owns nothing and only asks for payment to cover his basic expenses. Still, his vow of poverty landed him in hot water a couple of times with the IRS for not filing tax returns.

When Tony, celebrated by filmmakers and fellow lawyers as an advocate for the downtrodden, was sent to the Lompoc Federal Prison Camp for 10 months in 2006 for tax evasion, he assisted fellow inmates with their legal appeals. Also while incarcerated, he corresponded with Paulette. At one point, Paulette sent Tony a painting she titled "Desert Landscape." His letter in return was simple and revealed that at the age of around 70--he won't answer the age question--he was looking forward to returning to the courtroom.

Got your "Desert Landscape." Your art work adorns my gray barracks' cabinet wall. Gives me a lift sometimes when the mind drips dreary.

I'm four-tenths finished--it will be over soon. I'm leaner and stronger. I'm ready for my murder trial re-entry in March. I've had a sufficient "retreat"; I'm ripe to join the struggle again.

Indeed, upon Tony's release from prison, he filed, with three attorneys, a class-action lawsuit seeking minimum wages for himself and other inmates, citing slave wages as unconstitutional. Serra's fight for the underdog goes on, and Paulette artfully covered his unwavering quest for justice in this painstaking work.

The book launch for LUST FOR JUSTICE is Saturday, Nov. 20, at the Fort Mason Center in San Francisco, where Serra is speaking and signing books with Frankl. Order the book direct here.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Thomas? Not Anita Hill

noreply@blogger.com (Cathy Scott) — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 02:45:00 +0000

By Cathy Scott

(Reprinted from Women in Crime Ink)

What is up with Virginia Thomas? On a recent weekend, Thomas, wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, called Anita Hill’s voice mail and made a bizarre request.

In her message, Mrs. Thomas, seemingly out of the blue, asked for an apology from Hill for accusing the future Supreme Court associate justice of sexual harassment back in 1991 during his confirmation hearings--this, nearly two decades later. She won't get an apology.

Anita Hill has moved on--a long time ago, in fact--and perhaps Virginia Thomas should do the same. Now a professor at Brandeis University in Massachusetts, Hill, after receiving the message, first alerted campus security, because she thought the voice mail was a prank. She, unfortunately, has since learned that it was no joke. Yep, Mrs. Thomas had, indeed, left Ms. Hill the message, all these years later. Brandeis officials turned the matter over to the FBI.

According to a transcript of the call made available to the Boston Globe, the recorded voice said:
“Good morning, Anita Hill. It's Ginni Thomas. I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something.

“I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. Okay, have a good day.”

Say what? Lest anyone forget the sordid details from two
decades ago, Anita Hill, after being called to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, said under oath that Thomas, who was married to Virginia at the time, had repeatedly made crude and inappropriate sexual comments in the workplace, boasting of his sexual prowess, and referencing pornographic
novels. (I'll leave the exact details of the alleged comments to your imagination and not repeat them here).

Clarence Thomas adamantly has denied the allegations, calling them “a high-tech lynching.”

Hill recently told the Globe that she has nothing to apologize for and does not intend to retract her accusations that Thomas made sexually suggestive remarks to her when she was an aide and he was her boss at the Department of Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

“I certainly thought the call was inappropriate,” Hill said in a recent statement. “I have no intention of apologizing, and I stand by my testimony. No further explanation is needed. I testified truthfully about what my experience was back in the 1980s.”

For her part, Virginia Thomas, a Tea Party activist, confirmed to The New York Times that she was serious about wanting an apology. Here's Mrs. Thomas' official statement:

“I did place a call to Ms. Hill at her office extending an olive branch to her after all these years, in hopes that we could ultimately get passed what happened so long ago.

“That offer still stands. I would be very happy to meet and talk with her if she would be willing to do the same. Certainly no offense was ever intended.”

The New York Times opined that the he said-she said confrontation between Ms. Hill and the future Justice Thomas “deeply divided the country during what became a national debate about the nature of sexual behavior in the workplace.”

In addition, the paper reported, “Ms. Hill’s descriptions of unseemly conduct and his adamant denials produced one of the most polarizing Supreme Court confirmation battles of modern times.” In the end, the U.S. Senate confirmed Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court by a vote of 52 to 48. And he's been on the high court bench ever since. Public interest in and debate over Hill's testimony has been said to be responsible in large part for modern-day public awareness of sexual harassment.

As for Mrs. Clarence Thomas, whatever it was--an agenda?--that prompted her, at this long-ago juncture, to reach out and touch Anita Hill is baffling. Virginia Thomas has not explained, other than to confirm making the call and leaving the message.

Perhaps the FBI, in its inquiry, will get to the bottom of the ordeal and provide answers. And maybe Anita Hill can be left alone.

Photos courtesy of The Associated Press.

One Fatal Night in Las Vegas

noreply@blogger.com (Cathy Scott) — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 05:00:00 +0000

by Cathy Scott
Reprinted from Women in Crime Ink

This week marks the fourteenth anniversary of the day Tupac Shakur was shot.

And with the anniversary comes ESPN’s new documentary: One Night in Vegas: Tyson & Tupac. The rap star, poet and actor was gunned down just hours after watching Mike Tyson knock out Bruce Seldon at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. “(Tupac) didn't last long, but the time he did last, every minute, every tenth of a moment, was explosive," Tyson told ESPN.

Tupac was also explosive. In the minutes following Tyson’s professional fight, Tupac got into a street-like fight inside the MGM Grand as he was leaving the arena.

At the elevator bank just before the MGM’s main lobby, Tupac and his crew ran into Orlando Anderson, a known Crips street gang member from Compton, California. Tupac’s music producer, Suge Knight, who was with Tupac that night, was a known member of the rival gang Mob Piru.

When he spotted Anderson, Tupac said to him, “You’re from the South,” meaning South Compton. And the fight was on. Tupac, Suge and their entourage stomped and kicked Anderson. A security guard split them up, but Orlando, when Las Vegas police arrived, declined to press charges. The officers did not file a police report and did not even take Orlando’s last name. It would be Compton gang cops, a few days after the shooting, when Las Vegas police realized the scuffle might have significance, later offered up Orlando’s full name. They also offered up Orlando's lengthy rap sheet, gang history, and his street moniker "Baby Lane."

Backpedal a few years to 1992 after Tyson was sent to prison to serve out a sentence for rape. That’s when Tupac reached out to Iron Mike, saying he was going to be in the area and would like to visit him in prison. While they may have been an unlikely pair, both knew how to put up a fight, as evidenced later with the MGM scuffle Tupac started.

From prison, Tyson paid attention to Tupac’s thug-life image. They regularly talked on the phone. That’s when Tyson, who was a few years older than Shakur, handed out brotherly advice. Shakur told friends it meant a lot to him. “Tyson was giving me a lot of advice,” Tupac told a radio station. “I really looked up to him something hard. He’d tell me to calm down.”

But 'Pac did not appear to take it to heart. And he did not calm down. By the time Tyson was released from prison in 1995, Tupac was in jail on Rikers Island in New York, held on suspicion of a similar charge as Tyson’s, this one sexual abuse against a woman Tupac had met at a club and took back to a friend’s hotel room. Tupac was convicted and sent to the Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York.

Tupac was released on bond, posted by his record producer Suge Knight, pending an appeal. But before the appeal could be heard, Tupac was dead.

The same night as the Tyson-Seldon fight, Tupac was shot when a gunman in a white Cadillac pulled up to Tupac and Suge’s car and opened fire with a high-caliber Glock handgun, hitting Tupac several times, including in the chest. The Clark County coroner determined the cause of death as multiple gunshot wounds.

The last time Tyson would talk to Tupac would be in Tyson’s dressing room immediately following the fight. “I told him I’d see him that night and we could hang out,” Tyson told ESPN. Six days later, the 25-year-old hip-hop star was dead. Tupac’s unsolved murder has frustrated rap fans ever since, despite Compton Police (a law enforcement department which has since merged with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department) offering up Orlando Anderson as a suspect. For their part, Las Vegas police have said there wasn’t enough evidence against Orlando, and members of Tupac’s entourage were uncooperative. I began covering the case a couple of hours after the shooting, which was the topic of my book, The Killing of Tupac Shakur, and it appeared, after Anderson's name had become known, that there was motive -- the scuffle -- not to mention Compton Police's discovery of a Glock in the home Anderson lived in and Anderson bragging on his home turf that he'd killed Tupac.

But Las Vegas police, who traveled to Compton, did not formally interview Anderson and declined to arrest him. Eighteen months after Tupac was killed, Orlando Anderson was murdered in what police said was an unrelated shooting. We may never know if Orlando was, in fact, the gunman in Tupac's death.

As for Tyson, he told ESPN that Tupac’s memory lives on through his works. "He's going to last until the time this Earth comes to an end. I'm glad to be a part of his life and to have known him. (Tupac) was probably a misguided warrior. He had a heart as big as this planet. He had so much love and compassion, and you couldn't even see it under his rage."

In the meantime, the murder of Tupac Shakur, unofficially at least, remains unsolved.

Photo of Tyson and Tupac, courtesy of ESPN. Other photos courtesy of Yahoo! Images.

Lauryn Hill: Still Main Street

noreply@blogger.com (Cathy Scott) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 21:13:00 +0000

By Cathy Scott

In 1999, I wrote about Lauryn Hill's particular style of hip hop going mainstream. It was published in the Christian Science Monitor titled "Rap Goes From Urban Street to Main Street." No one knew then that it would be another decade before she'd top the charts again. She'd broken ground as the first hip-hop artist ever to win a Grammy for Album of the Year.

Now, 11 years later, Hill has once again topped the Billboard charts as a lead artist for the first time since '99 with her "Repercussions" single. Here's the article I wrote about Hill on February 26, 1999:

BOSTON— Just a few years ago, rap music was considered by many to be the enfant terrible of the musical world.

Now, 20 years after the Sugarhill Gang burst onto the national scene with "Rapper's Delight," the genre is becoming as mainstream as Garth Brooks and platform shoes.

While many of its lyrics remain as raw as ground chuck, rap is gaining a wider audience - and, in fact, is now the top-selling musical format in America.

Consider this week's Grammys, when Lauryn Hill became the first hip-hop artist to ever win Album of the Year. Last year, actor Warren Beatty crafted his satire "Bulworth" around rap's language of protest. In perhaps the ultimate sign of acceptance, Martha Stewart, America's arbiter of good taste, appeared at the MTV Music Awards with rapper Busta Rhymes.

But it's not so much that rap has gone mainstream as that the mainstream has finally caught up with the music. "I don't think the music itself has changed," says Sacha Jenkins, VIBE magazine's music editor. "But since we now have a generation of kids around the world who have grown up listening to rap music, it was only a matter of time when the demand for the music would grow."

Everything from rock to the tango has ignited a firestorm of criticism when it first hit the airwaves. (Remember all those warnings about "Elvis the Pelvis?") But the one surrounding rap burned hotter and longer, given the genre's raw lyrics and gangsta influences.

A few years ago, everyone from Tipper Gore to Bob Dole cringed in horror at rap lyrics bragging about guns and prostitutes. In 1992, Ice-T's "Copkiller" sparked a major free-speech battle. The furor over gangsta rap peaked in 1996-'97, when two of its rising stars, Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, were shot and killed. Both cases remain unsolved.

But today, rap is generating more dollar signs than headlines. Last year, for the first time, it outsold country--up till then the reigning US format. And while hip-hop's roots are deep in black urban America, last year more than 70 percent of albums were purchased by whites.

This change in listeners' tastes hasn't gone unnoticed by radio stations.

Patricia Cunningham, a host for KCEP, a black-owned R&B station in Nevada, says hip hop is a culture that is not going away, just like rock 'n' roll before it. Music that used to be heard only on black-owned radio stations is now played on pop music stations.

"I think everybody is realizing you have different styles in rap just like you do in other music," Ms. Cunningham says. "You have good lyrics and bad lyrics and good taste and bad taste... And I think people are realizing it's here to stay. They're used to the sound."

Hip hop's roots began in the Bronx, N.Y., in the late 1970s. Hip hop encompasses a culture of rap, rhythm and blues, and reggae music with clothes and graffiti-like art to go with it. Today's lyrics still tell harsh stories of what it's like [growing] up on the streets of America. As a result, hip hop has emerged as the voice of a generation.

While rap lyrics will never be the equivalent of show tunes, the ones honored by the music academy this week were more of the PG variety. Actor/rapper Will Smith, who first made rap safe for the suburbs in the late 1980s with humorous songs like "Parents Just Don't Understand," picked up a Grammy for best rap solo performance. In his acceptance speech, Mr. Smith, star of "Men in Black" and this summer's "Wild, Wild West," talked about a truly terrifying experience he'd had earlier that day: his first parent-teacher conference.

The big winner was hip-hop diva Hill, who picked up five awards for her deeply personal amalgam of soul, reggae, and rap, "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill." It was the most ever won by a woman. Accepting her award for Best New Artist, Ms. Hill read from Psalm 40 and thanked her children for being her inspiration "and for not spilling anything on Mommy's outfit."

What Hill sings about is typical of other hip-hop artists. "She talks about things that are relevant to hip hop and to young people coming up in black America, ranging from love, to education ... to sex, to growth, to change," Mr. Jenkins says. He noted that not every Shakur song was about guns or violence, even though that's the bad-boy image that has always been attached to the murdered rapper. "You can have Will Smith or Biggie Smalls, just like you can have the Rolling Stones or the Beach Boys."

Sean "Puffy" Combs, head of Bad Boy Entertainment, has assisted in the transformation of rap into a commonplace sound. Mr. Combs, also a rapper himself, helped promote a softer image, putting rap into the rhythm-and-blues category and sampling (recycling) songs from the Police and Diana Ross.

Rap artists and their music will probably become even more mainstream as time goes on, Jenkins says.

The kids who grew up on rap in the early days "become old people, and old people run things in this world," he says. "There's always a changing of the guard. The youth are expressing themselves with rap music that isn't so new any more."

New Book by O'Brien: My Week at the Blue Angel

noreply@blogger.com (Cathy Scott) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:48:00 +0000

By Cathy Scott

Here’s a news release from Huntington Press about my friend Matt's latest book.

For Immediate Release

Huntington Press Announces Release Date for My Week at the Blue Angel: And Other Stories from the Storm Drains, Strip Clubs, and Trailer Parks of Las Vegas by Matthew O'Brien

Las Vegas – Acclaimed author Matthew O'Brien (Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas) will release his newest title, My Week at the Blue Angel: And Other Stories from the Storm Drains, Strip Clubs, and Trailer Parks of Las Vegas, on October 25, 2010.

This creative nonfiction story collection boldly explores the disenfranchised and broken side of Las Vegas while highlighting the unexpected beauty in a neon wasteland, forging a path into a hidden world beneath the city, and lending a voice to the voiceless masses rarely seen.

O'Brien, founder of Shine a Light—an organization that aids the many men and women living in the flood channels of Las Vegas—has already gained recognition for one of the stories in the collection, “Another Day on Paradise,” in the form of a fellowship from the Nevada Arts Council.

Beneath the Neon, also published by Huntington Press, is an internationally acclaimed nonfiction book that received rave reviews from numerous publications and media outlets, including E!, Publishers Weekly, and Wired magazine.

Profile of 'The Profiler'

noreply@blogger.com (Cathy Scott) — Wed, 19 May 2010 18:54:00 +0000

by Women in Crime Ink

(reprinted with permission)

The Profiler: My Life Hunting Serial Killers and Psychopaths, by criminal profiler and WCI contributor Pat Brown, with co-author Bob Andelman, hits book shelves May 18.

Waiting for police to act on the 1990 murder of Anne Kelley, Pat Brown couldn't understand what was taking so long to bring the case to a close. Brown had long suspected a possible connection to the odd man who'd briefly rented a room in her home. At the time unfamiliar with the criminal investigative process, Brown believed the Kelley case was unusual. But as she began exploring unsolved murders in her area, she soon realized the case, unfortunately, was not all that rare.

For example, in Washington, D.C. alone, Brown learned that the murders of more than 120 women remained unsolved. "Who killed Nia Owens, Dana Chisholm, and Ann Bourghesani?" Brown asks in her latest book, The Profiler.

Who, indeed?

Brown vowed to do something. It was a move that would define her ensuing career as a criminal profiler. "Dead women were turning up everywhere," she writes in The Profiler. "It's like when you're pregnant and suddenly you notice how many other women are pregnant." It was a seminal moment. While she might not have been able to bring the Kelley case to an immediate close, she could help investigators and families figure out who might have killed other women, plus help determine if any of those cases were related, suggesting a serial killer might be on the loose.

She printed photos of 15 murder victims -- all women -- from across the country. She laminated the photos and placed each above the word "unsolved," written in large letters. Next, she hung the photos in a booth she rented at an outdoor festival. Festival-goers were stunned at the display. They'd assumed cases they'd read about in newspapers and seen on TV news reports had been solved. "They never caught that killer either," one person commented, pointing to the photo of a woman in the display.

Eventually, Brown launched a nonprofit group and web site. She took every training course available and read some 400 books on the subject and subtopics. Then she began profiling criminals. When the D.C. sniper in 2002 shot at people and their vehicles, the news media found Brown through her site. The attention catapulted her into the public eye and onto the airwaves, and one mystery case led to another. Today, she travels across the country consulting, criminal profiling and commenting on cases.

The Profiler is the result of that work, looking at individual cases, the evidence and circumstances surrounding them, any similarities to other cases, as well as peculiarities of certain murders. With this book, which Brown calls purposeful, she not only wants to pass on what she's learned and details of the cases she's worked on; she's hoping to see national changes in use of profilers. Her concept would have police departments use criminal profilers as standard tools, either inside the departments or outside, for the homicides they investigate.

In addition, she wants to to see profilers involved early on in a homicide investigation, within the first 48 hours. "What I've learned over a decade and a half of profiling cases is that you cannot bring a criminal profiler in late in the game. The evidence is long gone.

"We have far too many unsolved crimes, we have too little justice, and we have too many killers on the streets repeating those crimes," says Brown, who also received a master's degree in criminal justice from Boston University in 2007. Her aim is for "criminal profilers to be trained, including police investigators. There are thousands and thousands of unsolved homicides across the country."

But with law enforcement funding tight, Brown is realistic and understands fulfillment of her goal will take time. Eventually, she believes, it will happen. "In the long run," Brown says, "It could help save a lot of lives."

The Profiler is available wherever books are sold. Or order it on Amazon.com