Phil Collins · Yoga · Michael Strahan
It's the August budget sweep!
the true crime that's worth your time
As a so-called “heat dome” starts to settle over my apartment, all I want to do is drink frozen beverages and read some low-lift content. What is it about the heat that makes my attention span shrink to a teeny sliver? But it all works out, as this month’s budget cleanup* is full of bite-sized items that go down easy, like a cherry lemonade slushie with a little umbrella in it. Let’s get to it! — EB
*If you’ve just joined us, welcome! Here’s the deal: every four or so weeks, Sarah and I completely purge our story idea document of all the items and ideas we meant to get to but didn’t. Then I sweep it all into an issue on or around the last day of the month. And today is that day!
Michael Strahan’s Bishop Sycamore Football Project Caught Up in Coach’s Fraud Case [Hollywood Reporter]
HBO just announced that they were making a doc on this wild case — its Wikipedia covers all the bases excellently, but the TL;DR is that a kickass Ohio high school football team might not have been associated with a kickass high school at all! — and already it’s in trouble, as one of the subjects participating in the doc is involved in a bizarre bank fraud claim. I sure hope they works things out, though, because the docuseries has a delightful name: BS High. — EB
How Twitter’s Child Porn Problem Ruined Its Plans For An Onlyfans Competitor [The Verge]
An 84-employee internal team shut down Twitter’s plan to monetize adult content as it “cannot accurately detect child sexual exploitation and non-consensual nudity at scale,” but well over a year before, execs at the company determined that there are slews of abusive content on the platform that remain without deletion. But, sure, wingnuts, go after Wayfair.
Yoga Chain Reaped Millions but Filed No Taxes for Years, Prosecutors Say [NY Times]
The yoga studio chain has been the focus of creepy founder allegations for years, but a press release from the DoJ this month out into perspective some of those claims:
As alleged, the defendants operated a lucrative nationwide yoga business, which brought in over $20 million and netted them each substantial sums, permitting them to live lavish lifestyles. Yet the defendants chose not to file tax returns, or pay income taxes, for at least seven consecutive years. The defendants perpetrated their scheme in various ways, including paying employees in cash and off the books, refusing to provide employees with tax documentation, not maintaining books and records, paying personal expenses from business accounts, and using nominees to disguise their connection to various entities. At least two of the defendants even submitted fabricated tax returns to third parties when seeking a loan or an apartment, despite not filing any tax returns with the IRS. Thanks to dogged investigative work, the defendants now face serious charges for their alleged crimes.
If Netflix isn’t already hustling to crank a 8-ep docuseries* on the studio empire’s rise and fall, I’ll eat my Lululemon mat, and I am here for it. (Sarah, that means “dibs.”) — EB
*…that only needed to be three
For a zippy and fun true crime/espionage yarn, check out investigative reporter/Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins’s thread on the saga of Maria Adela Kuhfeldt Rivera. Bellingcat also wrote a full story on the case, which was picked up by pubs like the Guardian, if you’d like a deeper dive — but the tweet by tweet nature of Higgins’s narrative was a lot of fun. I’d love to see more stories, especially those in the true crime genre, presented this way — EB
‘Free Chol Soo Lee’: The Anti-True Crime Documentary That Exposes Much More Than a Terrible Miscarriage of Justice [Rolling Stone]
I think one of us put this in the budget doc hoping the other might get a screener for review (or vice versa — it’s been a long month!) but neither of us was blessed with an advance copy, so here we are. The doc on this explosive 1970s San Francisco case of racial profiling and false conviction is in theaters now, and will drop on PBS next year; maybe we can circle back then? — EB
Elwood Jones' impending execution and why it may not matter if the jury was wrong [Cincinnati Enquirer]
Folks who listened to Season 4 of Wondery’s Accused podcast are likely familiar with Jones, who has been on Ohio’s death row since 1996 after his conviction in the slaying of Rhoda Nathan. He’s maintained his innocence all along, and in a three day hearing last week, his attorneys argued for a new trial. The judge has yet to announce when she might make a decision.
Kids-for-cash judges ordered to pay more than $200M [Associated Press]
It’s “one of the worst judicial scandals in U.S. history”: Criminal prosecutors said back in 2011 that Pennsylvania judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan accepted millions in bribes from for-profit juvenile jails, and now the civil case has come to an end, when “U.S. District Judge Christopher Conner awarded $106 million in compensatory damages and $100 million in punitive damages to nearly 300 people.”
Sadly for the victims, the judges appear not to have any assets to pay that judgement: Ciavarella remain in prison, while Conahan was sent to home confinement in 2020 as part of a pandemic release program. If you need a refresher on the case, 2014 documentary Kids for Cash is available via most on-demand streaming services for around $4. — EB
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The 1976 Murder Of Frank J. Robinson, Deep East Texas Voting Rights Activist [Living Blue in Texas]
This report from Democratic/progressive outlet Living Blue does a deft job of illuminating how steep uphill the battle against voter suppression is in Texas (and beyond): Local law enforcement ruled what many believe was a clear case of homicide a suicide despite lack of compelling evidence, quashing any investigation into this civil rights activist’s death. Attention all true-crime content creators: before you make yet another Zodiac property, maybe look into a case like this one, instead? It might not be as lucrative, but there’s more to life than that. — EB
Judge says ‘enough is enough’ as ex’s $20M lawsuit against Phil Collins dismissed [Page Six]
I’m not going to go very hard on this summer read of an account of the wild claim in the pop star’s divorce case: the claims of abuse and toxicity against Collins’ ex, 48-year-old Orianne Cevey, suggest a mental health crisis on her part while photos of the couple suggest the 71-year-old singer is well into his golden years. I could be wrong about both assumptions, of course, but I still feel guilty about some casual comments I made about Bruce Willis’s career a year or so ago and have been treading carefully since.
In any case, this is a tangled mess of claims and counter-claims, alleged blackmail, and luxury real estate, and if someone wanted to make a podcast about the whole set of proceedings, I would listen immediately. And until then, I am re-listening to “In The Air Tonight” (above), one of the greatest pop songs of all time (though Sarah, via podcast, might disagree…) — EB
Octavia Spencer To Executive Produce FBI Docuseries For ID, Discovery+ [Deadline]
The working title of the docuseries is Feds, but there are a lot of pains taken here to make clear that that’s not the name we’ll end up with. Here’s the idea for the show:
Feds (wt) will give viewers an inside look at America’s leading crime-fighting agency, the FBI, with exclusive access to active-duty FBI agents and details of high-profile and unusual cases as told by agents, informants, undercover operatives and victims. Featured investigations will range from infiltrating MS-13 in Boston to taking down a multimillion-dollar drug empire in Florida. The series also uncovers looming tragedies that the FBI was able to thwart.
It’s early days yet, but the blurb for this six-part docuseries suggests a lack of interrogation of the agency’s efforts, which, these days, is sure to irritate all sides of the political spectrum: between snowflakes like me who worry about the FBI’s targeting of civil rights and social justice activists and current GOP messaging demanding that the agency be “defunded,” this show has the potential to be the Crystal Pepsi of true crime. And even after reading this rewritten press release twice, I’m still not sure why Spencer is involved, unless this is a very clever way to belatedly ignite interest in Truth Be Told? — EB
And that’s August! Here’s what we have in store for September: Stories on Dan Abrams, Micky Dolenz, Salman Rushdie, and more — and that’s just this week!
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