Exotic dancer Kim Roberts doesn't want to wait for the courtroom to tell her story. Here she is in Vanity Fair.

With every statement she makes, she provides impeachment for the defense on her prior statements. Will she never learn?

From yesterday's sentencing hearing of the two mob cops convicted of carrying out 8 murders for the mob while they were on the police force: Right after defendant Louis Eppolito used his right of allocution to proclaim his innocence and invite the victims' families to visit him in jail so he could prove it to them

It was at this point that without warning and certainly without permission, a large man wearing a seashell necklace suddenly stood up.

"Mr. Eppolito!" he yelled from the gallery. "Do you remember me?"

Apparently baffled, Mr. Eppolito said, "No."

"I'm the guy you put away for 19 years! I'm Barry Gibbs! You don't remember me? You don't remember what you did to me? To my family?"

The marshals quickly led the man outside, as the courtroom burst into applause.

Judge Jack Weinstein will impose a life sentence on the two crooked cops, assuming they don't win their motion for a new trial based on ineffective assistance of counsel at a June 23 hearing. The pair are claiming Bruce Cutler and Eddie Hayes were inadequate defenders. Eppolito's new lawyer is Joe Bondy.

Duke University has announced the lacrosse team will resume playing this fall. Stricter conditions will be in place.

"The reinstatement is inevitably probationary. ... (If) we did not allow these players the chance to take responsibility for creating a new history for their sport at Duke, we would be denying another very fundamental value: the belief in the possibility of learning from experience, the belief in education itself."

There's been little news in the Duke lacrosse players' alleged rape case the past few days, but the comments keep coming so here's a new thread. And some player news:

[Matt] Zash and two former teammates, Kyle Dowd and Dan Flannery, took part in workouts hours before the Major League Lacrosse college draft. All three were selected in Wednesday night's draft, and Zash could make his professional debut as early as Saturday when his Philadelphia Barrage faces the New Jersey Pride.

Former DOJ spokesman Mark Corallo, now in his own consulting firm, has filed an affidavit with the Court hearing the motions to quash subpoenas served by the government on San Francisco Chronicle reporters in the baseball steroid case, saying that the subpoenas represent "a reckless abuse of power." Ashcroft, he says, never would have allowed them to be issued.

He said Mr. Ashcroft's successor, Alberto R. Gonzales, had acted improperly in issuing the subpoenas. "This is the most reckless abuse of power I have seen in years," Mr. Corallo said in an interview. "They really should be ashamed of themselves."

The subpoenas, part of an effort to identify The Chronicle's sources for its coverage of steroid use in baseball, would not have been authorized by Mr. Ashcroft, Mr. Corallo said. "You just don't ride roughshod over the rights of reporters to gather information from confidential sources," he added.

Corallo now represents Karl Rove.

by TChris

John McCann concluded a confusing opinion piece in the Durham Herald Sun with this:

The lacrosse boys brought it on themselves, though -- even if the accuser's lying.

Talk about blaming the victim. Maybe you can figure out how "the lacrosse boys" brought on a false accusation. McCann is incoherent on the subject.

Here's a rebuttal to McCann.

Ok, there's not much news in the Duke case but it's time for a new thread. Here's an article on how defense lawyers are presenting a unified defense. Dave Evans' lawyer Joe Cheshire says:

Unindicted players and their lawyers would not be sticking together unless "every single one of them knows that they're innocent."

ABC11 Eyewitness News in Durham has obtained a copy of a police report that outlines in greater detail how the accuser changed her story.

by Last Night in Little Rock

I have been provided with the link to a copy of the search warrant for Rep. Jefferson's (D-LA2, New Orleans) Congressional office as well as defense counsel's excellent memorandum for sealing the records pending litigation of speech and debate privilege and separation of powers. I'm impressed with both. The affidavit online has several things redacted, but, what is there is damning. It is painful to read.

Unbelievable. According to an early police report describing an interview with the accuser in the duke lacrosse alleged rape case, the accuser said she was groped but not sexually assaulted.

It was not until the police decided to involuntarily commit her that she changed her account.

There also was an earlier lineup one week after the incident in which she failed to identify Dave Evans.

In 1,278 pages of discovery, there is only one reference to how the accuser in the Duke Lacrosse player's alleged rape case described her attackers to police. Yet DA Nifong says he has turned over his complete file. How can that be? The defense isn't buying it and Reade Seligman's attorney filed a motion today requesting the DA turn over her descriptions.

"At some point in their interviews and investigations, one or more of these officers asked (the accuser) to describe the men who she claims sexually assaulted her, and (she) provided some answer to that question," the motion filed by lawyers Bill Cotter and Wade Smith said.

Her "response to that question is critical to the defense of the case and the state may not withhold that evidence from the defendant."

by TChris

Breaking news:

Enron founder Kenneth Lay was convicted today of all six counts against him, including conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud.

Former Enron Chief Executive Jeffrey Skilling was convicted of conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud.

Update: TL: From the AP:

Lay was also convicted of bank fraud and making false statements to banks in a separate trial related to his personal banking.

Lay was convicted on all six counts against him in the trial with Skilling. Skilling was convicted on 19 of the 28 counts against and acquitted on the remaining nine.

More news of verdict here. TalkLeft background on the case is collected here.