The Daily Blog

Jun 30

Diddy Settles Lawsuit Over 1999 Nightclub Shooting.

Hip-hop mogul Sean Combs — aka Diddy — has reached a settlement with victims stemming from of a New York City club shooting which took place more than a decade ago. The New York Post reports that Combs agreed to pay three victims who were all injured in the shooting, in which former Combs protege Jamal “Shyne” Burrow was found guilty. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

While the terms of the settlement are being kept confidential by the involved parties, Michael Bergos — the owner of the now defunct nightclub — refused to sign his share of the legal agreement, which would bar him from speaking out on the case. He holds fast that he “did nothing wrong” and “may need to talk about [the incident] sometime in the future.” According to Bergos, the victim who was most seriously injured, Natasha Rueben, received a $1.8 million payout while the other two victims were given $500,000 and $50,000.

Although his payment should have been covered by his insurance company, Combs was forced to pay out of pocket because his insurance company went out of business. The shooting took place in December of 1999, while Combs was dating Jennifer Lopez — who was also in the club with him at the time of the incident. Combs was cleared of any wrongdoing in the case. Burrow, who maintains his innocence, was released from prison late last year but was deported to his home country of Belize.

May 21

Report: Danielle Staub Trades ‘Housewives’ for Stripping.

Fans of ‘The Real Housewives of New Jersey’ may have missed former cast member Danielle Staub in last night’s premiere, but Staub’s explosive departure from the show doesn’t mean she’s parted ways with drama.

Fresh on the heels of a rumored romance with rapper Ray J, Staub has signed a three-year contract with Scores Gentleman’s Club in New York, TMZ reports.

Staub has agreed to do one live appearance and occasionally appear on ScoresLive.com, the club’s adult website.

While signing a contract with a strip club may raise eyebrows, the 48-year-old is no stranger to nudity. During her stint on ‘Housewives,’ Staub bared it all for the cameras as audiences followed her through reconstructive surgery on a botched breast augmentation. She was later accused of leaking her own sex tape in 2010.

Oct 30

Contract Employees: Should They Have to Pay for Their Own Thong?

Nine exotic dancers, employed as independent contractors, got a conditional okay from a federal judge to proceed with a class action lawsuit against the Penthouse Executive Club for alleged violations of federal and state labor laws.

That means that other women employed as contract workers by Penthouse Executive Club can join the lawsuit now that it’s been conditionally certified as class action. The defendant claims that since the women are independent contractors they are not protected by the traditional federal and state labor laws. Therefore, this case will be closely watched by other contract employees.

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The grievances by the strippers, reports the New York Post, include:

Must pay for their own uniforms, that is, thongs
Employer didn’t pay minimum wage or overtime and confiscated part of tips
Employer charged dancers a house fee for dance shifts
Employer deducted a 20 percent premium when dancers exchange the house tokens, which some customers used for tips, for cash.

Aug 17

(Aug. 16) — In April 2009, on a snowy night in Denver, two friends were thrown out of a nightclub after one of them got in an argument with the bouncer.

That was the beginning of a 16-month ordeal that included a beating by two police officers with a department-issued metal club encased in leather, charges filed against them, a lawsuit by them against the city and finally the emergence of a video that led the city to drop all charges and settle the suit.

The camera was part of the police department’s High Activity Location Observation video surveillance system.The footage shows that police officers Devin Sparks and Randy Murr began dealing with the two buddies by throwing Shawn Johnson to the ground and beating him. Michael DeHerrera, Johnson’s friend, was on the phone, asking for advice from his father, a sheriff’s deputy. Right after DeHerrera was asked to get off the phone, he was hit in the face more than once and knocked to the ground by one of the officers.DeHerrera said he didn’t remember anything after he was thrown to the ground. He blacked out and woke up with bruises, stitches, a swollen head and chipped teeth.

He hopes settling the suit will lead to the firing of the two officers. Denver Citizen Oversight Board members also want the officers to lose their jobs because of the attack. But the department defends them.

“I saw nothing that proved excessive force,” said Ron Perea, Denver’s manager of safety. He added that the video is only part of the story, saying the video missed DeHerrera and Johnson “shoving” police officers.

DeHerrera denies using any physical force on the officers. “I have respect for law enforcement, pretty much because of my dad,” he told ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Johnson and DeHerrera initially were charged with interference and resisting arrest, but the charges were dropped and the lawsuit was settled for $17,500, according to “Good Morning America.”

Other than a three-day suspension without pay for both officers, Denver has allowed Sparks and Murr to keep their jobs. But the city’s independent police watchdog, Richard Rosenthal, who is with the Office of the Independent Monitor, doesn’t like that.

“Writing the report the way it was written, under penalty of perjury,” he said, “was absolutely inappropriate and should’ve resulted in the officers’ termination.”