Harvey Weinstein · Counterfeit Goods · That Freakin' Owl
It's the May budget doc cleanup
the true crime that's worth your time
I’m back! All hail Sarah for keeping this thing going through a stressful and depressing news week and New York heat with no water, as I drove to Minnesota and back in a week, all to retrieve a device that has already replaced me in my spouse’s affections:
I returned just in time to clear out our budget doc, and to extend my birthday subscription sale for one last May day. Sign up today for the real deal!
Now, on to the clean sweep. It’s a big one! Here we go. — EB
Harvey Weinstein’s Last Campaign [New Yorker]
This look at how oblivious/unrepentant Weinstein appeared to be about his criminal cases would be impossible to bear if he hadn’t been convicted, but this look at how his trial played out — and who collaborated with him (I see you, New York Post) — instead reads like a fairly just dessert. And some of it hits a bit different in the Heard/Depp era, including bits like this:
And so Weinstein made another casting decision: he chose the Chicago-based attorney Donna Rotunno to lead his defense. A former prosecutor, Rotunno boasted that she’d defended forty sex-crime cases and lost only one. She told reporters that her gender gave her an advantage in cross-examining women. If a male attorney “goes at that woman with the same venom that I do, he looks like a bully,” she said. “If I do it, nobody even bats an eyelash.”
“Brazen” Couple Tries to Walk Out of Manhattan Gallery With a Basquiat [Hyperallergic]
How’s this for bizarre: according to the NYPD, the couple above allegedly attempted to swipe a Jean-Michel Basquiat screenprint (and bottle of booze) from a gallery like a sketchy teen might pinch a pair of earrings from Claire’s boutique. Except those teens at least try to hide what they are up to!
Measuring about three and a half feet wide framed, “Dog Leg Study” (1982/2019) was hanging in Swarts’s office, which also functions as a private viewing room for clients. Security camera footage showed the unidentified thieves making their way past the gallery’s public exhibition space and into the empty office, where they appeared to assess the artwork’s value by taking a photo and looking up details on their phone.
They then lifted the piece off the wall and walked toward the gallery exit, also taking with them “about a third of a bottle of Maker’s Mark.”
Two threads to note on Depp/Heard. This increasingly vile case has spawned a lot of good thinking about domestic abuse and believing victims, so if there’s a silver lining, I guess that’s it.
I have a couple friends who were close to Thompson, so I tend to keep my mouth shut about him, but, look, I think we all know that any guy who is worshipful of Hunter S. Thompson is to be avoided. This thread runs down Thompson’s likely influence on Johnny Depp, who, let’s face it, has never ever seemed like a master of critical thinking. It’s also a nice reminder that Paul Bettany is not great!
Sex and culture writer Ella Dawson offers a good reminder that the crux of the case is about victims speaking up and/or reporting abuse.
Both threads are thoughtful examinations of the cultural impact this trial has — and will continue to have — even as various standup comedians (etc) bemoan the #MeToo movement as somehow restrictive to their relationship patterns.
‘Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey’ Trailer: True Crime Docuseries Uncovers Abuse in Radical Mormon Sect [Indie Wire]
And the Mormon hits keep coming! This one is a docuseries on Warren Jeffs that I am pretty sure we have mentioned before (say it with me, Substack search sucks), especially given all the other Jeffs-adjacent true crime out there these days. The show interviews some of Jeffs’s 78 wives, including one who married him when she was 14. It drops on June 8.
'The Staircase': Michael Peterson's Lawyer David Rudolf Says Owl Theory Is 'Believable' [Newsweek]
I’ll just blockquote the juice for you:
Speaking to Newsweek, Michael's lawyer David Rudolf shared he and his client did not buy the theory when they first heard about it.
He shared: "It's something that I dismissed at first, as did most people because there really wasn't any substance to it, other than the fact that Larry Pollard believed it and the scalp wounds were certainly reminiscent of a talon, which is what caused him to even think about the theory."
…
"He [Peterson] was like the rest of us. I think he dismissed it at first but again, I think like with me, gradually over time, you start to take it a little bit more seriously, given all the other information that exists. In fact, there's evidence at the scene that tends to support it and there's certainly nothing that I'm aware of that refutes it, or makes it impossible."
'Ignored, disbelieved': Southern Baptist Convention sexual abuse report details cover up, decades of inaction [USA Today]
A 300-page report from an independent examiner says that “Southern Baptist Convention leaders perpetuated a cycle of abuse for two decades by ignoring reports of sexual abuse and dismissing recommendations for reform, enabling a culture that retraumatized survivors.” Its annual meeting is less than two weeks away, and church members are expected to better manage sexual abuse and assault within its ranks. Seems like solid fodder for a docuseries!
Writer needed to write true crime podcast episodes for a popular tech podcast. [Journalism Jobs]
Hacking/cybersecurity podcast Darknet Diaries is paying a solid .30/word minimum for freelancers who can construct episodes “entirely from articles and court documents.” Pieces would run around 5,000-12,000 words, so we’re talking some decent cheddar.
‘It was as if he set out to destroy my sanity’: how the spy cops lied their way into women’s hearts – and beds [Guardian]
BE contrib Margaret Howie sent this our way, noting that “‘Spy cops’ is really too cutesy a name for such a vile operation, which is but one of the many scandals buzzing around the Met Police like so many flies.” The interview is intended to promote Deep Deception, a book by some of the victims of undercover cops who targeted them for their ties to activist organizations.
'Welcome to Paradise' podcast works through the lingering pain of an abusive marriage [NPR]
Anna Maria Tremonti’s is “one of Canada's most respected journalists,” but until this CBC podcast she hadn’t revealed an abusive marriage she entered when she was 23. Tremonti tells NPR’s Michel Martin that
I had wanted to talk about this publicly on and off over time. And I just never did want to insinuate, you know, myself into a story. And I didn't know how people would react to me because this happened in the '80s, and, you know, a lot of - there are a lot of misconceptions. And I didn't want to be labeled a certain kind of journalist because I only, you know, would be seen as someone who was a, quote, unquote, "battered wife." And I thought it might hurt my career at one point.
NJ True-Crime Story Becomes a Controversial Musical [New Jersey Monthly]
We’ve discussed the slaying of Carol Neulander — orchestrated by her rabbi husband — here before, but I don’t think Sarah or I were aware that a musical take on the case is running this summer at LA’s Geffen Playhouse. The show’s description:
On a November night in 1994, a murder was committed in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. In this poignant true-crime story told completely through song, a tight-knit Jewish community gathers to recount, remember, and reckon with the details of what happened in—and to—their town. This wholly original production, written by South Jersey native Matt Schatz, asks what it does to our souls when our leaders fall from grace.
Matthew Neulander, one of Carol’s kids, says that “Anyone who had a role in imagining, creating, producing, or performing this play should have their motives questioned as thoughtless at minimum; cruel and wholly inappropriate might be more accurate,” and that “This play cannot be excused as simply artistic interpretation.”
Parole recommended for Manson family member Patricia Krenwinkel [CNN]
The 74-year-old Krenwinkel admittedly “pursued and stabbed [Abigail] Folger 28 times” during the attack on Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski’s home, and has been denied parole 14 times in the past. CA Gov. Gavin Newsom has the final say on her release, but as he’s made a practice of rejecting parole for any of Manson’s followers, her actual release seems a long shot; Sharon’s sister, Debra Tate, told the LA Times that there were technical issues throughout the hearing that means its transcript — which Newsom will review — will be incomplete:
“All the governor gets is a written transcript,” she said. “Do we leave these kinds of blanks in regard to a human being that took active participation in one of the most brutal murders in American history? Charles Manson stated that she was the one most like him. That was Charlie’s assessment of Patricia Krenwinkel.”
Chris Watts’ Infamous Murder House Hits the Market, but Who’s Going To Want It? [Realtor.com]
When the website devoted to selling homes drops a hed like that, you know you’re in for a wild ride. The five-bedroom, four-bathroom home, located in Denver-adjacent suburb Frederick, was asking $660,000 in a listing posted last week — however, the “this home is no longer available on the market,” its listing now reads.
I’m too lazy to check the property records to see who bought the property, which was most recently owned by Sandra and Franklin Rzucek, Shanann Watts’s parents, after their $6M wrongful death suit against Chris succeeded in court.
“I wish them luck, but I would put it down as the family being optimistic,” says real estate appraiser Randall Bell, CEO of Landmark Research Group. He specializes in real estate affected by tragedies or disasters. “These are just tough sells. It’s a gruesome crime, and it’s not where a lot of people want to go home and relax with that kind of history.”
Compounding the problem, the home continues to attract a lot of attention. In September, neighbor Chuck Burr, who lives two doors down from the Watts home, told Realtor.com that multiple cars drive by each hour on weekends. Some folks stop and take photos, while others have attempted to break in, prompting calls to the police.
Spot the difference: the invincible business of counterfeit goods – podcast [Guardian]
This “audio longread” also has a text version; it’s all about the business of “mass-market knock-offs and blatant counterfeits” as displayed in the incredible-sounding Musée de la Contrefaçon, which makes me want to go to France. It’s also an interesting meditation on aspirationalism and why “brands” are valued so highly that scofflaws will break the law to replicate them:
When people would rather buy a more expensive genuine article than a cheaper fake – even if the two items look almost identical – it’s because they are buying not just the product’s tangible qualities, but also its intangible ones. We buy into the reputation of the brand and the reassurance that gives us. We buy into the image that companies create around brands through glossy advertising and PR. We buy into the cool they conjure up by sponsoring the right parties, by getting the right actor or rapper to be the face of the brand, by getting the right people to be seen drinking the product, or wearing it, or using it. The power of the intangible attributes of a brand is that they change not just how you feel about the product, but how you feel about yourself.
Many different words are used to describe a brand’s intangible qualities. Some talk about “meaning”. Grootswagers spoke of “the dream”. Kouters used “goodwill”. Advertisers like to talk about “image” and marketing professionals prefer “brand equity”. From the counterfeiter’s point of view, it’s easy: intangibles are simply the part of the product that they don’t need to copy.
This week on Best Evidence: Subscribers should brace for Sarah’s special May review issue, which means the June review poll isn’t far behind.
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