The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz
The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz |
| O.J. Simpson resurfaces in court to seek new robbery trial Posted: 14 May 2013 11:07 AM PDT LAS VEGAS, May 14 — O.J. Simpson, the ex-football star famously acquitted of murder in 1995, appeared in court yesterday seeking a new trial in a Las Vegas armed robbery case that sent him to prison as witnesses testified to what they said were blunders by his lawyer. Simpson, 65, appeared older, grayer and heavier after five years behind bars as he entered a Las Vegas courtroom in blue jail garb, his hands and feet shackled, for a hearing that could last for a week into claims that his then-lawyer mishandled the Nevada case. He was brought to court from a Nevada prison where he is serving up to 33 years for the 2007 incident in which he and five other men stormed into a room at the Palace Station Hotel and Casino and took thousands of dollars in memorabilia from a couple of sports collectors at gunpoint. Defence lawyers argued unsuccessfully that Simpson was only trying to retrieve his own stolen memorabilia and was not aware that an accomplice had brought a gun along. He was found guilty on 12 charges, including armed robbery and kidnapping. Simpson's current lawyers have asked a judge to throw out his 2008 conviction, saying his trial lawyer, Yale Galanter, had a conflict of interest because he knew in advance that Simpson planned to confront the sports dealers at the hotel. They also argue that Galanter never told Simpson that prosecutors had offered a plea deal in which he would have been sentenced to two to five years in prison. Much of the testimony during the first day of the hearing centred on an audiotape of the altercation in the hotel room that two witnesses said Galanter should have fought to keep out of the trial as inadmissible evidence.
"I thought about it and I decided not to. I thought, this is one slick lawyer," Barnett said, adding that he believed the tapes could have been analysed for US$5,000. Barnett was followed on the witness stand by lawyer Eric Bryson, who represented one of Simpson's co-defendants in the case. Bryson told the court that the tapes were "untrustworthy" and should have been challenged as evidence. "Without the tapes, I thought the state's case was very weak," he said. Simpson's 43-year-old daughter, Arnelle, took the witness stand shortly before the lunch break, testifying that her father had been drinking heavily during the weekend of the incident. That testimony was expected to be used by Simpson's lawyers to suggest that he was not aware that guns were drawn at the hotel. A separate appeal by Simpson of his conviction in the case was rejected by the Nevada Supreme Court in 2010. Simpson, a former star NFL running back turned TV pitchman, was accused of the 1994 stabbing and slashing murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. He was acquitted in 1995 after a year-long proceeding, dubbed the "Trial of the Century" in the press, that was carried live gavel-to-gavel on US television. — Reuters |
| DiCaprio, Christie’s raise US$32m for environmental causes Posted: 13 May 2013 09:22 PM PDT NEW YORK, May 14 — Actor Leonardo DiCaprio and Christie's auction house raised nearly US$32 million (RM95.7 million) for environmental causes yesterday at a charity art auction. DiCaprio, the star of the new film "The Great Gatsby", organized the so-called The 11th Hour Auction along with his foundation and Christie's to protect the last wild places on Earth and their endangered species. The 33 works of art, many of which were created for and donated to the auction by the artists, sold for US$31.74 million in spirited bidding in a packed auction house. Art collectors from around the globe also placed bids by telephone. "All I can say is thank you, thank you, thank you," DiCaprio told the audience at the end of the auction, which raised more than double the pre-sale estimate. In addition to the sale, which set records for 13 artists including Carol Bove, Joe Bradley, Mark Grotjahn, Raymond Pettibon and Mark Ryden among others, a US$5 million matching donation for three of the lots and US$1.15 million in other donations raised the overall total to nearly US$38 million. At the opening of the auction, DiCaprio, who has supported environmental issues through his foundation since 1988 and also produced and narrated the 2007 documentary "The 11th Hour" about the state of the environment, urged the audience to dig deep into their pockets. "Bid as if the fate of the planet depended on us," he said. And they did. All of the 33 works were sold, and many fetched prices that were three or four times their pre-sale estimates.
Zeng Fanzhi's "The Tiger", an oil on canvas, fetched nearly double its high estimate with a price of US$4.8 million, and Bharti Kher's sculpture "The Skin Speaks a Language Not Its Own", went for US$1.7 million. Each of the three works had a pre-sale estimate of US$1.5 million to US$2.5 million. DiCaprio donated "Ocean V" by Andreas Gursky, which sold for US$600,000, and he bought an acrylic on canvas by Takashi Murakami for US$700,000. A portrait of DiCaprio painted by Elizabeth Peyton sold for US$1 million. Loic Gouzer, international specialist at Christie's and the head of the sale, said many of the works were of a quality never seen at auction before. A panel of environmental experts and the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation will decide which conservation projects will benefit from the proceeds of the sale. Gouzer said he and DiCaprio had approached the artists and explained what they had hoped to accomplish with the auction, which they have been planning for a year. "We explained that we wanted great works and they were very reactive because of the cause. The artists are very sensitive to the fact that we are destroying our planet," Gouzer said in an interview ahead of the sale. — Reuters |
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