This is from the imdb.com news feed:
“Desperate Housewives actress Marcia Cross is battling to keep naked pictures of her from being published. Two hundred sexy snaps were reportedly discovered by a catering company hired to removed rubbish from redhead Cross’ home in Los Angeles. The firm’s owner is being represented by agent David Hans Schmidt, who plans to sell the pictures. Schmidt tells the New York Daily News, “There are some pictures of her showering outside. She looks absolutely gorgeous. And yes, the carpet does match the curtains.” But 44-year-old Cross’ legal team claim the photos were thrown away by mistake and insist they still belong to her and husband Tom Mahoney. She is demanding their return. But Schmidt is confident he has the law behind him and hints he plans to sell them abroad: “The pictures were not stolen. When you throw something away, you forfeit that property. We recognize the copyright issue, but US copyright law stops at the border.” But he has given Cross the opportunity to buy the photos back, claiming he knows how wealthy she is after discovering her tax return in the trash as well. Schmidt adds, “I’m not looking to mortify Ms. Cross. I just want the most money for my client. I know how much she made, but out of respect for Ms. Cross, I won’t discuss it.””
Putting aside that I think they mean “carting company” since I don’t see caterers hauling trash all that often…and putting aside that the lawyer comes across as a complete pig with the carpet/curtains line…isn’t this astoundingly close to legalized extortion? I mean, it’s one thing if, say, you accidentally throw out a pair of Gucci loafers and a homeless guy who’s picked them up wants a hundred bucks for what is now his property. But this seems a whole ‘nother level.
PAD
• 
Didn’t the lawyer realize that “Boston Legal” and Denny Crane are fictional? Also, since “Desperate Housewives” is still a reasonably successful show, Disney may be willing to allow Cross access to their legal teams for the defense, and possibly to have the lawyer disbarred.
That being said, this situation sounds like exactly the kind of publicity incident that could have been cooked up to promote “Housewives,” at a time when the show is running out of “outrageous” incidents that can be legally broadcast on American television. Which is all the show really has to keep its audience, since none of the characters are sympathetic.
Peter… I gotta agree with you on the “legalized extortion” bit. Looks like a case where the letter of the law will be used to violate the spirit of the law once again.
“I mean, it’s one thing if, say, you accidentally throw out a pair of Gucci loafers and a homeless guy who’s picked them up wants a hundred bucks for what is now his property. But this seems a whole ‘nother level.”
Same, same. Yes, the lawyer is a scumbag (that’s something new) but the law is the law.
We can’t say because shoes are a need and a $100 would help out a homeless guy a whole hëll of a lot, that said homeless guy has more rights under the same law as the guy holding the pictures.
This does sound so much like a plotline from the show, you have to wonder if it’s real.
On the other hand, it’s a great example of just how sleazy some people are.
Still, I don’t know that the whole “your garbage becomes my property” line works. This isn’t some guy coming along a trash heap and pulling a box of photos out. It’s a contractor taking property he was paid to dispose of and trying to extort more money out of his client. He must be counting on getting enough moeny to retire on, because no one with any kind of trust issue is going to ever hire him again.
If this is real, I think that carter owner is in a losing proposition.
“We can’t say because shoes are a need and a $100 would help out a homeless guy a whole hëll of a lot, that said homeless guy has more rights under the same law as the guy holding the pictures.”
Okay, but…that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that in the case of the homeless guy, it’s a simple exchange of goods. In the Cross case, it goes beyond that: Give me money for these photographs or else I will see to it that you feel completely humiliated on a global scale.
If the DA has the lawyer arrested and charged with extortion, I won’t be the least bit surprised.
PAD
If anything legal comes out of this case, I wouldn’t be surprised if a lawyer asks the supervisor or owner or whatever of this carting company just how exactly the pictures were found. Did these guys say “Hey! This is Marcia Cross’s house! Let’s look through her garbage, not just haul it!” And I’m sure Schmidt has lawyers across the country saying “we don’t look bad enough ALREADY?”
It’s sleazy, but it’s perfectly legal. It’s just like the guy that buys the celeb sex videos and tells the stars “it’s getting out one way or another, you might as well sign on and make money.”
She threw them out, they were found by someone else. Offering her the opportunity to bid on the pics is not extortion.
I don’t think this will hinge on “woops, threw something out I didn’t mean to” – I think it’s going to hinge on “someone hired to remove waste searched the waste for something to extort the client with”. They are different cases, and the carter is an idiot if he thinks otherwise.
I think I’m going to have to see these photos, all of them, before I can reach a conclusion. 😛
If I were a judge, I’d stick a major fine (at the very least) on Schmidt’s client, and then one on Schmidt for representing him in this reprehensible matter. Which is why I’m not a judge and probably just as well. It’s tempting to want to go the HERMAN route (“The jury has found you ‘not guilty’ but I’m going to give you two years just to be on the safe side.”) but the law does apply equally to protect scum as it does innocents.
Rich Lane – I think I’m going to have to see these photos, all of them, before I can reach a conclusion. 😛
I agree 😉
This sounds similar to the Cameron Diaz case.
The lawyer who has the Cross photo appearently hasn’t heard of that case because IIRC that the judge ruled that the photographer in Diaz’s case was using extortion by offering the photos to Diaz or they would be published.
Okay I’m no copyright lawyer but I would think that publication could be stopped with a simple exercise of the copyright by the original photographer who we can assume was her husband. To me it’s no different than if I found an Ansal Adams original in the trash after his death when they were cleaning out his house. I can take it home, hang it on the wall, show it to immediate friends, but if I tried to publish it his heirs could sue the heck out of me and the publisher for copyright infringement.
Of course he is threatening to sell overseas where copyright may not be as stringent.
Just because he has physical possession of the pictures, doesn’t give him the title to sell them or reproduce them. If PAD throws out a working copy of the scripts to Spider-Man 20-30, does that mean the trash guy can print books based on those scripts?
He has rights to the actual photos, at best. No one has the right to publish, unless the title and/or IP owner gives it.
Not that I disagree that the lawyer is a scumbag who should be shot, but how humiliated will Cross be, given that she’s already appeared nude in film?
An author acquaintance once told me that copyright isn’t necessarily automatic. At least not up here in Canada. Probably not in the US, either. There has to be some sort of tangible evidence to show you came up with it first. In the case of photos? Could be harder. Especially if the negatives are nowhere to be found.
“but how humiliated will Cross be, given that she’s already appeared nude in film?”
I’m extremely discomforted by this line of thought. Anyone should be able to disrobe, in the appropriate setting/time, without a moral judgment, if they so choose. And it’s the choice that’s part of the key to why this is so heinous. She did NOT chose to make those images public, and that should be respected.
As for the second issue, they should have the right to express their private sexuality as much as I do — or you do. To expose her in this manner leads to implications that “she likes it”, or that “she’s into that weird/kinky stuff”, or the ever-favorite “she’s a šlûŧ”. For every Jolie who seems to ride the crest of such commentary, there are others who’s careers were damaged, or even destroyed, all for a few bucks in someone’s pocket.
“but how humiliated will Cross be, given that she’s already appeared nude in film?”
I’m extremely discomforted by this line of thought. Anyone should be able to disrobe, in the appropriate setting/time, without a moral judgment, if they so choose. And it’s the choice that’s part of the key to why this is so heinous. She did NOT chose to make those images public, and that should be respected.
As for the second issue, they should have the right to express their private sexuality as much as I do — or you do. To expose her in this manner leads to implications that “she likes it”, or that “she’s into that weird/kinky stuff”, or the ever-favorite “she’s a šlûŧ”. For every Jolie who seems to ride the crest of such commentary, there are others who’s careers were damaged, or even destroyed, all for a few bucks in someone’s pocket.
Added thoughts: since the lawyer appears to understand that his client would be busted were he to try and sell/publish the photos in the US, it seems to me that PAD’s correct: this is extortion. The carter is trying to extort money from someone that stands to lose her livelihood…working on a succesful ABC show…maybe not a family show, but certainly a family sensitive network…should let’s say publically sensitive photos of her were to be made public. They may just be photos of her naked. Then again, taken in the context of being taken by her husband, chances are “just naked” doesn’t really adequately describe them. Embarrasing probably doesn’t begin to describe them…mortifying, maybe.
And I don’t think previously appearing topless/nude in film makes it more tolerable, either. That’s work. And it’s copyright protected, so you can’t legally get wide-spread access to it. It’s also not personal, something she shared with her husband, explicitly NOT for sharing with the world.
I’d have to think this company just put itself out of business.
Who’s going to want to deal with these guys knowing that they’re going through the trash they’re supposed to be removing?
I hope she’s suing. This agent’s comments were completely out of line, and the fact that he admitted he’s got tax info too… well, I’d consider the threat of identity theft to be part of the equation.
This is the kind of thing where I like to imagine the judge offering a choice of damages for the defendant to pay:
“Mr. Schmidt, this court has found in favor of the plaintiff, Marcia Cross. It is the judgment of this court that you shall immediately return all photographs, financial documents and other personal property listed in the complaint, and that you shall pay Ms. Cross the sum of $500,000 plus court costs…or, as an alternative to paying the $500,000, you may opt to pay the sum of $25,000 and allow Ms. Cross or her husband to punch you in the mouth as hard as she (or he) can, right here and now, bare-knuckled, closed-fist, no flinching or blocking allowed, with no legal repercussions to Ms. Cross or Mr. Mahoney.”
I’m sure there are many, many reasons such a penalty wouldn’t hold up, but it sure is fun to imagine–especially in civil cases where there’s little or no hope of the plaintiff actually collecting anything.
Both this guy and his client are worthless pieces of human debris.
A lot of people hire a professional carting company in order to avoid just this type of thing. They’re expected to be professionals, pick stuff up, transport it and dispose of it without digging through the trash to see what they can find.
That’s strike one.
The crap this guy has spilling out of his mouth is ridicules. The carpet does match the curtains? Talking about selling the pics overseas if he gets stopped here? Talking about knowing what to charge because they got her tax returns as well? He has the gall to say that he has “respect for Ms. Cross” while trying to pull this?
Bull$!++
That’s strike two.
In a just world, strike three should involve their jaws and repeated hard rights (or lefts for you southpaws out there) followed by the same thing to the guts. In the real world, we can only hope for something almost as satisfying.
I hope the guys pulling the shenanigans get sued into the ground, lose their respective business licenses and spend the rest of their professional lives trying to recover for attempting anything this vile and disgusting.
And, for the record, I’m no DHW fan and I could care less about Cross as an actress. My reaction is based only on the act itself. I would say the same thing if this were the girl next door.
“Okay, but…that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that in the case of the homeless guy, it’s a simple exchange of goods. In the Cross case, it goes beyond that: Give me money for these photographs or else I will see to it that you feel completely humiliated on a global scale.
If the DA has the lawyer arrested and charged with extortion, I won’t be the least bit surprised.
PAD”
Ah, gotcha that makes sense. The homeless guys just saying than I’m gonna keep your shoes if I don’t get the 100 bucks.
It is sorta different.
Good point.
Yeah, it’s sleazy as can be. Unfortunately, all he has to do to sidestep any claim of extortion is withdraw his offer to sell the pictures back to Ms. Cross. It’s not extortion if he’s only selling them to someone else.
In a bizarre way, this situation is actually better than if he’d just sold the pictures without ever offering them to Ms. Cross first. At least now she has the option of keeping the photos away from the press.
Personally, I’m hoping for some weird loophole to bail her out. It seems like the world would be a better place if throwing something out had a period where you could legally reclaim the property, and that period started from the point where you found out that they it was gone. Kind of a “tosser-outer’s remorse” period.
Jason – You have GOT to be kidding?! We don’t have enough crap piling up in landfills as it is without having laws whereby garbage companies could be sued for incinerating someone’s reclaimable property?
I’m of two minds on the thing. First, the lawyer and the man selling the photos are of course dirtbags.
Cross, however, isn’t the brightest bulb either.
There are pictures of me naked and no one is ever going to see them… because I know where they are. It’s important to me for others not to be able to see them and so I know where they are at all times. Part of me says that the pictures aren’t hers anymore because not only did she put them in with things to be thrown away, but then she paid the guy to do the taking away to boot.
By the way… my carpet matches my drapes too.
“Unfortunately, all he has to do to sidestep any claim of extortion is withdraw his offer to sell the pictures back to Ms. Cross. It’s not extortion if he’s only selling them to someone else.”
Too late. the act of extortion has been made. Him trying to take it back now would be like a høøkër telling an undercover cop that she doesn’t want to sell herself to him anymore and she would reeeaalllyyy like it if he could take those cuffs off of her now.
I think that there’s enough, and then some, out there of his running his mouth to bury the slime ball.
An interesting way to solve this would be for Cross to accept their offer and once she has the photos back the DA would charge the lawyer and the carter with extortion.
Once they have been found guilty, the money gained through illiegal means would be returned.
I’m with Rich Lane.
The photos must be released and all judgement witheld until then.
Release them into the public domain so that no one benefits.
I’m with Rich Lane.
The photos must be released and all judgement witheld until then.
Release them into the public domain so that no one benefits.
I was joking of course.
You probably were too, but I just wanted to be clear. 🙂
While Schmidt and his lawyer are demonstrably scuzzy, and the carting firm will most likely see a sharp decrease in business, once the photos got pitched, they passed into the public domain. That’s why police don’t need a warrant to search the trash. (Somebody police or legal-like correct me if I’m wrong)
For somebody to be able to say, “whoopsie, didn’t mean to throw that out,” would set a dangerous precedent.
Of course, I also have to agree that Cross and her husband can’t be all that bright to have “accidentally” tossed out a stack of nudie shots. It’s like “accidentally” putting them on the internet. That genie just ain’t going back in the bottle.
So, it’s kind of a tight race as to whether one party is scuzzier than the other is dumb, or the other way around…
-Rex Hondo-
“…once the photos got pitched, they passed into the public domain.”
“That’s why police don’t need a warrant to search the trash. (Somebody police or legal-like correct me if I’m wrong)”
Well, you are talking about two different things. Maybe three.
1) I throw something out, someone walks off with it, I change my mind about it and I want it back. I’m screwed here. No debate.
2) I need to find proof of something (say drugs). I can look without a warrant but I better get one anyhow. You have no idea how many new guys get stuff thrown out of court or have evidence pulled because of that. Most times you have to actually go onto someones property to get to their trash. Good lawyers will kill you over that. CSI is full of $!++ and then some.
I would give better detail (though, I think that kinda covers it and my dislike of CSI) but I’m on dinner break and I ain’t got much posting time here.
3) This can be claimed to be copyright. See the posts above.
“I also have to agree that Cross and her husband can’t be all that bright to have “accidentally” tossed out a stack of nudie shots.”
I don’t know. I’ve had things go out the door by mistake or only just caught them before they go bye-bye when getting ready to move or doing major cleaning or work on my small home. I know lots of people that will say the same thing.
I can’t imagine trying to keep track of everything in a home so large that I need to hire a service to do that or as large as most Hollywood people seem to own. You’ve got both of those here. I can see a photo album going bye-bye by mistake real easy.
Thanks for the clarification, Jerry.
Still, I can see a regular photo album, or a lot of other items getting tossed into the wrong pile during a move. I don’t think this was a situation as hectic as a move, however. And with something potentially damaging, like these photos, most reasonable would be extra careful. Any time I’ve moved, I made dámņ sure I knew where the box of pørņ was at all times and that my mom was nowhere near it. And none of that was even pics of me or the then-girlfriend. (none of which exist, for just such a reason)
*shrug* Suffice it to say that I don’t find myself particularly sympathetic to either side.
-Rex Hondo-
I think this is despicable behaviour and the dude AND his lawyer should be thrown in jail for even trying it. Scumbags.
Woodrow: I’m extremely discomforted by this line of thought. Anyone should be able to disrobe, in the appropriate setting/time, without a moral judgment, if they so choose. And it’s the choice that’s part of the key to why this is so heinous. She did NOT chose to make those images public, and that should be respected.
As for the second issue, they should have the right to express their private sexuality as much as I do — or you do. To expose her in this manner leads to implications that “she likes it”, or that “she’s into that weird/kinky stuff”, or the ever-favorite “she’s a šlûŧ”. For every Jolie who seems to ride the crest of such commentary, there are others who’s careers were damaged, or even destroyed, all for a few bucks in someone’s pocket.
Luigi Novi: Good points. Thanks.
Congrats to the lucky finders!
Rich, I will neither confirm nor will I deny being serious or unserious about this particular topic and I will practice total obfuscation on the issue.
New wrinkle:
Britney Spears’ soon to be ex-husband apparently has a sex video of the two of them and is threatening to sell it (where it would be available on the internet) unless he gets more money that he would ever make if he weren’t married to Britney (on the order of millions if not tens of millions of dollars) and custody of their children. The threat is of course that this tape could utterly ruin Britney’s career.
Is this just hardball divorce tactics or extortion?
Wow! This sucks for Marcia Cross. As a fan of her show, I hope this doesn’t cause a problem with her and ABC. The guy and his lawyer are obviously total pieces of S#!% to try this. It makes me mad just thinking of the type of dirtbag that would try this.
It kind of reminds me of the guy behind the “girls gone wild” tape series, and how he was extorted over video taken of him in a compromising situation. Although that case is wildly different for various reasons. First off, someone broke into the guy’s house and kidnapped him. then they pulled his pants down, and posed a sex toy on his butt and taped him forcibly confessing to be gay. Then extorted him over the tape. (I believe. I saw this on TV and might not remember all the details.) I have no love for the “girls gone wild” guy, I think what he does is reprehensible, but that is harsh treatment for anyone.
Whether or not Marcia Cross and her husband were “stupid” to let this stuff get thrown away, what is happening to them is no less heinous. There was some other case a few years ago in my state where there was some sort of public streaking event loosely organized at a university. A bunch of girls were assaulted. Although I think it is stupid behavior for girls to be running around naked in a public crowd, they still don’t deserve to be molested anymore than anyone else. It’s just that they kind of put themselves in the right situation for it.
My wife and I have NEVER taken pics or video of ourselves or each other for the very reason that it can easily end up where you don’t want it to. That being said, whether or not you invite something to happen through stupid behavior on your part doesn’t make it “ok” that it happens to you.
BTW, I think this guy has already committed extortion. He doesn’t have to get the money from her for it to stick. It’s like someone up there said about a høøkër and an undercover cop. Or think of it like this: kidnapping is still kidnapping whether or not you get your ransom.
I also think that although it is probably very mortifying for her to have what may possibly be extremely explicit pictures out there for others to see, I hope she takes the stance that in this age where we are inundated with sexual images, it isn’t “that big of a deal” for a famous actress to have her naked pics out there. Is it wrong? sure is. But there are far worse things that can happen, and I think she has the law on her side.
Borat creator Sacha Baron Cohen reportedly signs a $42.5m (
Borat creator Sacha Baron Cohen reportedly signs a $42.5m (