Extortion

An Orange County attorney who filed frivolous lawsuits against hundreds of small businesses in four counties has been jailed for ignoring a judge's order to stop. Harpreet Brar, 34, has made a career of suing in Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and Orange counties and collecting thousands of dollars in settlements from nail salons, liquor stores, real estate firms and video stores reluctant to fight the suits. Orange County Superior Court Judge Peter J.

A former Los Angeles police sergeant invoked his 5th Amendment rights Friday, refusing to answer questions about an alleged scheme to extort $100,000 in exchange for dropping a bookmaking investigation. During a court hearing on Eric Portocarrero's petition to overturn his bookmaking conviction, former Sgt. Mark Arneson refused to answer half a dozen questions, including whether he used his position to "interfere with the administration of justice" in the case.

Stepping into the hypercompetitive arena of New York gossip, Jared Paul Stern wasn't afraid to spew a little poison. As a writer for the New York Post, he described Melanie Griffith and Goldie Hawn as "cryogenic freeze jobs gone awry," called Elton John "too old, fat and short to look ironically hip in ugly sweatsuits," and once mused that "whenever you see a beautiful girl, it pays to remember that somewhere, someone is sick of her."

Jared Paul Stern, the gossip writer at the center of a federal extortion inquiry, said Monday he had discussed money with Ron Burkle, whom he knew socially through a friend, because he believed the California billionaire wanted to invest in his clothing company. Stern, 35, spoke by telephone from the Catskills farmhouse where he has been since late last week, when investigators from the U.S. attorney's office told his bosses at the New York Post about the investigation.

Last week, news of Jared Paul Stern's Page Six payola scandal rippled through New York's media circles with all the force of an 800-pound bomb. The story has all the stranger-than-fiction twists you could ask for: media figures accused of Mafia-like strong-arm tactics, boldfaced names in compromising positions -- and at its core is a terrific Los Angeles story, hinging on a Southland billionaire and with tantalizing implications about the entertainment industry's backroom dealings.

It takes a special kind of man to wear a monocle. You need to be a 19th century deep thinker, like Alfred, Lord Tennyson or Karl Marx, or maybe a jackbooted Aryan type, like Col. Klink on "Hogan's Heroes." It works too if you're a jaunty cartoon character with a top hat, like the Penguin from "Batman" or Mr. Peanut from the Planters label. Now we can add a new category to the accessories list of winking devotees: 21st century gossipmongers of Manhattan.

Jared Paul Stern, the gossip writer, was mixing Campari-and-sodas on a recent evening when more urgent matters drew his attention. He stepped past his collection of walking sticks and looked onto the porch. "Snoods, quick, she's got a vole, and it's still alive," he said to his wife, Ruth Gutman, whom he calls by the pet name "Snoodles." "That cat goes on a kill-crazy rampage when spring comes," Stern said, darkly, returning to his desk. "She eats them," he said. "So."

The New York Post, which has maintained a Sphinx-like silence about the scandal over its Page Six gossip column, is restructuring the feature to reduce its reliance on freelancers. It was a freelancer, Jared Paul Stern, who was videotaped allegedly offering California billionaire Ron Burkle a guarantee of favorable coverage in exchange for payments that would amount to $220,000 over the course of a year.

In a twist to a wiretapping scandal captivating Hollywood, the private eye indicted for allegedly bugging celebrities and other high-profile targets has accused the federal government of spying on him in prison through a secret arrangement with his then-girlfriend.

A former state senator was convicted in Memphis of extortion for taking $9,500 in payoffs from a fake company set up by the FBI to catch corrupt lawmakers. Roscoe Dixon was the first of five lawmakers charged in the case to go to trial. He had been charged with seeking and accepting payoffs from E-Cycle Management, which offered bribes to state and local officials across the state in a sting.