Jennifer Aniston Part of 'Girls Gone Wild' Producer's Defense

Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories):
1. Jennifer Aniston Part of ‘Girls Gone Wild’ Producer's Defense
2. Glenn Beck Boosted by Boycott
3. Evidence Mounts Against Dermatologist in Jackson Death Probe
4. ‘American Pie’ Actor Survives Ape Attack
5. Jaycee Dugard’s Tragic Kidnapping
 

1. Jennifer Aniston to Be Part of ‘Girls Gone Wild’ Producer's Defense

Come October 2009, Joe Francis will be the defendant in a tax evasion trial, and the “Girls Gone Wild” creator could receive up to 10 years in prison if convicted.

The Smoking Gun has obtained a series of slides that Francis’ defense team reportedly plans to use during opening arguments. Interestingly, Jennifer Aniston is slated to be part of Francis’ defense.

A portion of the prosecution's case will involve the presentation of evidence that Francis deducted millions of dollars of fraudulent business expenses and also sought to hide income using offshore firms.

On the other side of the case, as indicated by The Smoking Gun slides, the producer’s defense team plans to present evidence of “celebrity guests” who stayed at Francis’ Mexican estate. Hollywood houseguests include Aniston, Vince Vaughn, Orlando Bloom, and Jack Nicholson.

The defense will apparently argue that the Francis mansion is entitled to be an investment property that was rented to well-heeled tenants, and therefore tax deductions are legitimate.

Meanwhile Francis has been accused of committing assault and battery on Playboy 2008 Playmate of the Year Jayde Nicole, allegedly while at a Hollywood club. He flat-out denies it. Nicole was dating “Bromance” actor Brody Jenner at the time of the alleged incident.

The way in which the accusation was made public was through the social media phenom, Twitter.

The following was posted by Jenner on his Twitter account: “Joe Francis beat up my lady this morning for no reason! Pulled her to the ground, punched & kicked her? What does that say about him?"

“How can you call yourself a man when you beat up a girl?? Joe Francis is a piece of s***. Joe Francis needs to be in jail!!!," the tweet continued.

Although no arrests have been made, Nicole had a bruised cheek, swollen face, bruised left rib, sore lower abdomen and some of her hair yanked out, according to TMZ.

She intends to press charges against the soft porn purveyor for criminal assault and battery.

2. Glenn Beck Boosted by Boycott

Looks like left-led boycotts of Glenn Beck and Whole Foods have backfired, with Beck achieving record ratings and Whole Foods generating greater profits than before the boycott began.

Thankfully, we live in a country where people are free to boycott if they wish. However, in Beck's case, the boycott was pushed by a fringe organization, which is headed up by one of President Obama's czars. Not hard to connect those dots.

The other boycott was ostensibly directed at the Whole Foods CEO because the exec dared to express his opinion about free market reforms to our healthcare system.

As soon as the boycott started, Beck's ratings took a forward leap. His Fox News Channel show last Wednesday achieved its best ratings ever with over 3 million viewers. Beck even beat out Bill O'Reilly’s show in the 25 to 54-year-old demographic by 12,000 viewers.

Numbers such as these are astounding for a non-primetime show.

Talk-radio great Rush Limbaugh gave Beck an assist by appearing as a guest. And Sarah Palin recommended Beck’s program to her Facebook fans, urging people to watch the show so that they would find out “who is actually running the White House.”

The following day Beck once again came in first among the 25 to 54-year-old demographic.

It’s rumored that Katie Couric is trying to get the left to launch a boycott against her next.

3. Evidence Mounts Against Hollywood Dermatologist in Jackson Death Probe

Dr. Conrad Murray, the cardiologist and former live-in physician for Michael Jackson, isn’t the only doctor who is being scrutinized by police as part of the investigation into the singer's death.

Dermatologist to the stars Dr. Arnold Klein is also being focused upon in an effort to determine whether he facilitated Jackson's drug habit.

The recent raid on Beverly Hills’ Mickey Fine Pharmacy was accomplished with a search warrant that sought documentation of drugs Klein allegedly prescribed to himself and then gave to Jackson.

The police reportedly seized prescriptions, patient profiles, DEA forms, and drug inventories.

The search warrant alleges that between Jan. 1, 2008 and July 6, 2009, Klein self-prescribed 27 controlled substances using the Mickey Fine Pharmacy. He then allegedly gave the drugs to others, including Jackson.

The patient profiles will reportedly show Jackson's name, as well as aliases that he used.

Klein's attorney has told the DEA that his client did not self-prescribe drugs.

The denial is critical to Klein's medical practice because self-prescribing controlled medications is in violation of California statute. If a physician is found to have self-prescribed, he or she could be fined and lose the right to practice medicine.

It remains to be seen whether the evidence is sufficient to expose Klein to criminal prosecution.

4. ‘American Pie’ Actor Survives Ape Attack

Best known for the raunchy teen oriented “American Pie” film franchise, actor Jason Biggs suffered an attack while on vacation.

In a scene that could have been written for the movie series, Biggs had a surprise encounter with a mad monkey, and it altered his holiday plans in a flash.

Biggs and “American Pie” co-star Eddie Kaye Thomas had flown to Gibraltar to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the release of the first “American Pie” flick, which teed up both actors’ careers.

As the two were hiking in the woods, a large monkey suddenly came out of nowhere, jumped on Biggs and apparently "tried to bite his face off."

It turns out that the animal was actually a local primate, a macaque monkey. Thomas helped Biggs battle the beast and he avoided serious injury.

The macaque monkey is commonly referred to as the Barbary ape because of its stubby tail. There are over 200 of the creatures living on Gibraltar, and visitors are cautioned to keep their distance.

The monkeys were first introduced by the Moors and, according to local folklore, as long as they stay on Gibraltar it will remain under British rule.

Thanks to the macaque, Biggs shortened his stay and returned to the U.S. where now he'll only have to fight the pesky paparazzi.

5. Jaycee Dugard’s Tragic Tale Speaks to the Existence of Evil

It’s an incredibly moving saga, the abduction and amazing emancipation of Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was held captive for 18 years.

The story throws the spotlight on something our post-modern culture has all but abandoned, to the detriment of our criminal justice system; that is, the existence of good and evil.

Jaycee was only 11-years-old when in 1991 she was abducted near her home in South Lake Tahoe, 170 miles from Antioch, which was where Phillip Garrido lived.

Jaycee and her children, now aged 11 and 15, were kept in abysmal conditions in a hidden soundproof shed-and-tent compound in Garrido's backyard. The three spent the nearly two decades locked in a 10 foot by 10 foot shed, moved to a second shed or put in one of two tents.

Garrido was a registered sex offender, due to a 1977 conviction on charges of kidnapping and rape of a 25-year-old South Lake Tahoe woman whom he held in a small storage facility in Reno, Nev.

He was 25-years-old at the time and told the victim his crimes were “her fault because she was attractive,” according to legal documents. He was sentenced to 50 years of hard time in Leavenworth, Kan., and while in federal prison met his wife Nancy, who is allegedly involved in the Dugard kidnapping.

Garrido only served 11 years of his sentence. He was granted parole in 1988.

An integral part of the development of criminal law in Western society is dependent on a defendant’s state of mind. The word used in legal treatises is “mens rea,” Latin for “guilty mind,” a criminal mindset in which the person committing the crime understands the nature and quality of his or her wrongful actions. Because this concept has inherent moral underpinnings, those of the liberal persuasion have altered it to suit an ideology.

Liberal intellectuals, social scientists and legal theorists have succeeded in pushing away traditional notions of good and evil and promulgating the idea that criminals are not responsible for their actions. As a result, “discomforts” such as guilt and shame have essentially been eliminated and replaced with modernist subjective ethics.

Even the language in the justice system has been altered to conform to modernist theories. Prisons have been renamed “correctional facilities.” They are run, not by wardens whose job was to oversee the punishment phase relative to the crime, but rather by “corrections commissioners” who seek to rehabilitate “clients.”

The reflex reaction of the intelligentsia and many in the mainstream media is to struggle to provide a rationale for a criminal's actions by finding some explanation other than an evil mental state, i.e., the individual has experienced a ubiquitous “cycle of abuse,” developed a feigned diminished capacity or acquired a Twinkies problem.

The late Scott Peck, psychiatrist and bestselling author of “The Road Less Traveled,” was an atheist. He went on a quest to examine the existence of human evil while researching a subsequent book, “People of the Lie.” After attending what he described as a genuine exorcism, he came to believe in spiritual evil. As is often the case, Peck's acceptance of the existence of evil led to his recognition of the ultimate good. He became a Christian.

Amidst the evil of the Dugart case, we can actually find some goodness. The bright spot in the otherwise dismal story is found in the actions of an amazing female police officer who used her intuition to initiate the arrest of Jaycee's accused kidnapper. Her name is Ally Jacobs.

Garrido had walked onto the University of California Berkeley campus, asking to hold a religious event on the property. Jacobs questioned him about the young girls that he had brought with him. He claimed they were his daughters.

But Jacobs also questioned the girls, and she was not comfortable with their answers. She characterized the girls as having a “weird look in their eyes” and acting like “brainwashed zombies.”

Jacobs said she was responding to the situation “not from a cop standpoint, [but] from a mother's standpoint.” She called Garrido's probation officer and mentioned the daughters. The officer immediately informed her that Garrido didn't have children.

A few hours later, Garrido and his wife were in police custody, and Jaycee and her daughters were free at last.