- Today was not a good day for former star athletes and the law. Let's begin our tales of woe with the same thing that pops into everyone's mind when you hear the words "athlete" and "jail" in the same sentence: O.J. Simpson. Yes, the Juice has run....afoul of the law again. Simpson is in jail, accused of violating terms of his bail in an armed robbery case, after a bondsman told authorities the former football star tried to get him to pass a message to a co-defendant. First, I'd like to make a plea to the prosecutor in this case. Can't you just leave the guy alone, it's not like he killed anybody....this time, anyhow. Simpson has a 9 a.m. court hearing on Wednesday, when prosecutors plan to request that Simpson's bail be revoked and he be kept in jail until the trial in April. The Juice arrived in Las Vegas on Friday on a flight from Florida with his North Las Vegas-based bail bondsman, Miguel Pereira. He was taken in handcuffs by a police escort to the Clark County Detention Center. Pereira, of You Ring We Spring, said he was unhappy because he had not been paid for handling Simpson's bail. Pereira added he gave prosecutors the message Simpson wanted him to take to a co-defendant because he didn't want to face criminal charges. "He left a message instructing me to do something violating a court order," the bondsman told The Associated Press after escorting Simpson from his home in Miami. "I don't want to get involved in such a dilemma or a criminal act." Simpson's attorney denied the allegations. Of course the Juice denied the allegations - the man is freaking bulletproof. He;s made some kind of deal with the devil and can get away with murder, literally. His attorney, Yale Galanter, offered this convincing explanation for his client's situation. "O.J. did not try to persuade anybody to contact a witness," Galanter told The Associated Press.The prosecution isn't buying that story, with District Attorney David Roger alleging in a motion filed with the court that the tape-recorded message Simpson left for Pereira on Nov. 16 was an effort to contact co-defendant Clarence "C.J." Stewart, which violated a court order. "I just want, want C.J. to know that ... I'm tired of this [expletive]," Simpson is quoted in the documents as saying on the taped message. "Fed up with [expletives] changing what they told me. All right?" Maybe this is just me, but if the Juice tells me he's fed up with something, I'm not asking questions. Whatever he wants, I'm going to comply, lest he turn me into a human Pez dispenser like his ex-wife (allegedly). Pereira confirmed that Simpson left the message, in which he expressed frustration at testimony during a three-day preliminary hearing in November. Pereira believes the message was discovered by someone tapping Simpson's phone. A Las Vegas police transcript of the message, which is attached to Roger's motion, is titled, "surreptitious recording. "Simpson had been instructed by Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Joe M. Bonaventure in September not to have any contact with anyone involved in the case -- not even by "carrier pigeon." Carrier pigeon? No. Large, lethal knife? That's more the Juice's chosen method of communication, Your Honor. Roger's motion alleges Simpson "committed new crimes," without elaborating. Galanter said he believed the "new crimes" referred to allegations of witness tampering. He called Pereira a member of Simpson's defense team, and said he was "totally miffed" by the effort to use a tape of a permissible phone call to try to revoke Simpson's bail. "He was clearly voicing frustration to a member of the defense team who had been providing security, transportation and investigation services," Galanter said. Pereira said he provided security and transportation, and that Simpson stayed at his home during the preliminary hearing. But he said he and his business, You Ring We Spring bail bonds, were not part of Simpson's legal team. Great name, loser. Who doesn't love a cutesy name for their bail bondsman? No one enjoys a good laugh at a funny name more than an accused criminal. "I'm a separate entity," Pereira said. "Whenever they go into their attorney-client thing, I step out of the room. I'm not an investigator, nor am I hired or paid by their defense team." Pereira said he was upset that Simpson never paid him the $18,750 he was due for posting Simpson's bail. Let it go, Miguel, let it go. If the Juice doesn't want to pay you, don't push it. Would you rather have that $18,750 and end up dead or live and be without it? Be smart, my man. "I'm in the bag for plane tickets, car rental down in Florida, even the $40 filing fee at the jail," he said. Again, do you want to live or die, Miguel? Let it go. Three other former co-defendants in the burglary case, Walter Alexander, Michael McClinton and Charles Cashmore, agreed to plea deals and testified against Simpson at the evidentiary hearing. If I'm those guys, I'm asking for protective custody 24/7 as part of my deal, with that protection extending for the rest of my life. Clearly the Juice, even at age 60, is still a bad dude and the worst guy ever. He will literally kill to even the score, so let's just hope he ends up in the place he should have been since, oh, about 1994......jail.
- Marion Jones and that ginormous gap between her front teeth didn't have a good day, legally speaking, either. Jones had her sentencing hearing today after pleading guilty to lying to investigators about using performance-enhancing drugs and her role in a check-fraud scam., and despite her lawyers and prosecutors not expecting or pushing for prison time, she received a six-month sentence. "I ask you to be as merciful as a human being can be," she implored the judge. Umm, sorry Marion, but when you took part in that check-fraud scam, injected yourself with those 'roids and cheted in meet after meet, you kind of forfeited that right to mercy. Lying to the feds didn't help your case either. Law enforcement tends to be funny about that; you lie to them, they get pissed for some odd reason. Jones, once the premier female sprinter in the world, has been "put through humiliation with great fanfare," said U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas, who sentenced her. He said Jones damaged two federal investigations with lies that came years apart, so "I don't think the criminal conduct can be written off as a momentary lapse of judgment or a one-time mistake, but instead a repetition of an attempt to break the law." Yeah, you could say that. Lying to the feds isn't exactly an oops, I jaywalked or ran a red light sort of thing, is it? The check-fraud scheme was a major crime and the wide use of steroids "affects the integrity of athletic competition," he said. If Jones had told the truth from the start, he said, it would have been a great help to the ongoing BALCO investigation. Isn't it amazing how no athlete caught up in this BALCO mess seems to be able to tell the truth? Weird. Going down along with Jones was her former coach, Olympic champion Steve Riddick, who was sentenced to 5 years and 3 months in prison for his role in the check-fraud scam. Riddick also was given three years' probation and must pay back $375,000. Jones pleaded with the judge not to separate her from her sons "even for a short period of time," saying she was still nursing the younger one. Although she is happily married now to Olympic sprinter Obadele Thompson after being married to confirmed 'roid user and Olympic shot-putter C.J. Hunter and dating another confirmed 'roider, Tim montgomery, she said she knew from experience the problems of bringing up children in a one-parent household. Karas acknowledged the children were victims, but said criminals "have to realize the consequences of their actions on others." In other words, it's not the court's problem that you're a criminal and have to go to jail, it's your fault, M. "We wouldn't be here today talking about the possibility of incarceration if Ms. Jones-Thompson had told the truth," the jude said. A prison sentence, he said, might make others "think twice before lying. It might make them realize that no one is above the obligation to tell the truth." The judge said he stayed within the six-month maximum suggested by prosecutors because of Jones' sons, her eventual acceptance of responsibility and the good she "can do to debunk the worldwide lie" perpetrated by performance-enhancing drugs. He also told her that 400 hours of community service in each of the two years following her release would "take advantage of Ms. Jones-Thompson's eloquence, strength and her ability to work with kids." He suggested she teach children that "it's wrong to cheat and to lie about the cheating." Karas sentenced Jones to six months on the steroids case and two months on the check fraud case but said the sentences could be served at the same time. He imposed no fine, he said, because Jones can't afford to pay one. In case you hadn't heard that part of the story, a few months ago it came out that Jones has about $2,000 to her name, which would make her sympathetic if you weren't a lying, cheating criminal. After long denying she ever had used performance-enhancing drugs, Jones admitted last October she lied to federal investigators in November 2003, acknowledging she took the designer steroid "the clear" from September 2000 to July 2001. "The clear" has been linked to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, the lab at the center of the steroids scandal in professional sports. Use your prison time to clean up your act, Marion, and when you come out, try to figure out what life holds for a disgraced former Olympian whose entire career is a sham.
- Since I do such a good job of alerting you to albums to avoid, I figure from time to tiem that I should also point out albums that you want to make sure you listen to and illegally burn copies of, er, buy. One such album comes from a great band from my hometown, the Black Keys, Their garage band, two-man rock outfit has already produced four great albums (Chulahoma, Magic Potion, Thickfreakness and Rubber Factory) and earned them a loyal, devoted follwing among rock fans, and now the duo of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney are finally back with a new album. Attack & Release will drop on Tuesday, April 1, and no, this is no April Fool's joke. The album is produced by Danger Mouse of alt-hip-hop act Gnarls Barkley and is the first one the band has produced in an official, standard studio setting. Their previous albums have been recorded in their own digs, which I think helped contribute to the raw, genuine sound of the group. Hopefully going into this new setting won't take away from that, although I don't suspect that it will.
- Simple crimes carried out by simple criminals invariably lead to arrests. Last month, two crooks with little more than a crowbar and a car jack were able to steal millions of dollars in paintings from the Sao Paulo Museum of Art in a matter of minutes. They made a clean getaway but clearly they didn't have a good plan for moving the paintings once they had them, because the two masterminds have been arrested with the paintings in their possession. The art, including works by Pablo Picasso and Candido Portinari, were found along with the thieves not far from where they were stolen. Memo to these two ass hats: When you steal valuable works of art, it's best not to hang around the same city you stole them from. Before you thieve them, you need to have a plan on what to do with them once you steal them, because otherwise you end up right where you are now, in jail and no better off for your effort. If you actually were smart enough to have a plan, you could have moved the art, made millions and been far, far away from Sao Paulo by now. I know I haven't gotten around to finalizing the details from my seminar to help aspiring criminals because you all aren't too bright, but this is a lesson you should know even without my help.
- I often feel the need to step in and head off disasters when I see them start to develop, so I'm going to issue a caution to officials at Folsom State Prison in California. Those officials have pulled the plug on a concert scheduled to take place at the prison to honor the 40th anniversary of legendary singer Johnny Cash's concert at the facility. Cash, who passed away in 2003, performed before Folsom's inmates on Jan. 13, 1968. He had a heart for the inmates and their problems, having seen his own share of trouble in his life. "Johnny was wild at heart, just like these men," said Joe Avila, the executive director of Prison Fellowship Ministries. "But just like him, they can change. They can walk the line." The prison and concert promoter are blaming each other for the cancellation of the show. Prison officials cited problems with media access, filming rights and general security concerns. The original Folsom concert became a legendary live album, but there will be no chance for a redux. Four nonprofit groups were to have underwritten the cost of the show and shared its profits. Instead, a possibility memorable show has been cancelled and I have to say, this could turn ugly. I do hate to butt in here, but pissing off prison inmates is one of the last things you want to do. You had a bunch of guys locked up for varying amounts of time, some bad dudes with lots of pent up anger and the potential to inflict a lot of pain and you're going and ripping a free concert from them? I'm sure all of the guards at the prison are thrilled about this. Way to poke the sleeping bear with a stick, Folsom Prison officials.
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