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Published: December 4, 2008
■ A photographer with tbt*, an alternative publication in St. Petersburg, Fla., is suing R&B singers Chris Brown and Rihanna, saying that their bodyguards beat him and broke his camera. Luis Santana filed the $1 million lawsuit yesterday. It also names the bodyguards and a St. Petersburg club where he says the attack occurred May 6. He is asking for compensation for his $3,000 camera, photos that were lost, injuries and emotional distress.
■ Rocker Kid Rock is upset that he cannot pick the good deed that will serve as his punishment for a brawl at a Georgia Waffle House. In a post on his Web site, the rocker criticizes a judge for denying his request to serve his 80 hours of community service by performing for U.S. forces in the Middle East. Georgia State Court Judge Alvin T. Wong, who denied the request Sept. 30, sees it differently. He said that Kid Rock had performed for U.S. forces before and would do so even if he was not under a sentence to perform community service. "Besides, giving him credit for something he would otherwise love to do in front of a camera completely defeats the punitive purpose of performing community service," Wong wrote.
■ Kevin Federline says that money was no object in his custody fight with Britney Spears. He tells People magazine he vowed to "spend every last dime" to make sure that sons Sean Preston and Jayden James were OK. "That's all that mattered. I didn't know how much power Britney had. That really scared me," he says. Federline and Spears split up in 2006. Federline, an aspiring rapper, later gained custody of their boys as Spears' behavior spiraled out of control.
■ Tyler Perry went to court in Marshall, Texas, to face allegations that he stole material for his blockbuster film Diary of a Mad Black Woman. Donna West is suing actor-screenwriter Perry for copyright infringement in U.S. District Court and wants a jury to award her family all profits from the film. West testified Tuesday that she developed a script titled Fantasy of a Black Woman based primarily on her own experiences. U.S. District Judge Leonard Davis told jurors he expects the case to be completed by next Tuesday.
■ Attorneys for filmmaker Roman Polanski, a fugitive for 30 years in a sex case involving a 13-year-old girl, filed a request Tuesday to dismiss the charge against him because of prosecutorial and judicial misconduct. The motion says that a documentary about Polanski released this year showed "a pattern of misconduct and improper communications" between the Los Angeles County district attorney's office and the judge in Polanski's case. Polish-born Polanski, 75, has been living in self-imposed exile in France since fleeing the United States in 1978 after pleading guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl in Los Angeles.
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