On a recent Friday afternoon in London, Jarvis Cocker, 62, is musing over the suit he’s just picked up from the Portobello Road Market: “I’m quite pleased with it,” he says.
He’s also grabbed some clogs — not to wear but to look at — and he notes that his wife “hates them,” but he’s happily in awe of the pair.
The outing represents a blissful break for Pulp’s leading man; it’s been a little more than two months since the group’s eighth studio effort, which debuted at No. 1 on the U.K. album charts. “More” comes more than two decades after their last project, “We Love Life,” released in 2001.
“I’ve come to realize over 24 years that I enjoy making music,” Cocker says. “It’s a main source of enjoyment. I mean, I enjoy being with my wife and stuff like that. But in terms of creativity, it’s my favorite thing to do.”
When Cocker first started making music — around “15 or 16” — he saw forming a band as a way for him to “navigate the world at a safe distance.”
“I was always quite a shy kid, so it was difficult for me to talk to people,” he recalls. “To talk to people from a stage, rather than to their faces… that worked to a certain extent.”
Though generally considered the “underdogs” of Britpop, Pulp produced some of the most intriguing sounds of the ’90s.
(Tom Jackson)
But the band’s early attempts to make the grade had fallen flat on its face. Unlike some of the group’s Britpop peers, Pulp had been around since the ’80s — Blur,Oasis, and Suede all released their debuts in the first half of the ’90s.
“It” came out as a mini-LP of sorts, under Red Rhino Records, with a short 31-minute run time over eight tracks.
“It was a deafening silence,” Cocker says of its reception. “It really didn’t sell anything at all … We played a few concerts, and then the band fell apart.”
He adds that at that point, he was considering giving up music, shipping off to Liverpool and studying English. He’d been offered entry into a program there, but two months before he was due to start, he got a call from Russell Senior.
“[He] asked me what I was doing, and I said, ‘Oh, I’m giving up music, it’s not working out’” he says. “We had a rehearsal just him, me, and Magnus Doyle [brother of Candida Doyle, Pulp’s eventual keyboardist], and it was exciting.”
Notably, he remembers thinking, “I don’t want to go read English. I’m going to stay in Sheffield and see what happens.”
Though the group would inch closer to what we now know as Pulp’s lineup, the musicians faced similar problems: They “didn’t sell anything” and were “quite ignored.” In fact, it wasn’t until Cocker went off to college to study filmmaking at Central Saint Martins — taking a sabbatical from Pulp and then returning in 1991 — that the band was asked to play a concert in ’92 and gained some traction.
Later that year, Britpop fame followed, as they were asked to play a Parisian festival alongside some would-be familiar faces: Blur and Lush.
“It was like we had some friends at last,” he jokes.
A historic run of releases came in the following decade, with “His ‘n’ Hers,” “Different Class” and “This Is Hardcore” all concocted in a period of four years.
“Having been a real … wilderness for a long time, and feeling very out on a limb … to be considered part of a movement, at least at first, was exciting,” he recalls.
“Once we actually got a chance to become popular, especially after ‘Common People’ had been a hit … then we had to record ‘Different Class’ very quickly to kind of capitalize on that.”
But the grind began to slow down to a halt. He confesses that after Pulp released “This Is Hardcore” in 1998, he began contemplating whether he “should still be in a band.” In the face of growing popularity, Cocker’s image became more well known, and the lens began to close in.
“It just put me into a different kind of social situation that I didn’t really enjoy,” he remembers. “So, I was conflicted.”
Around 2002 — one year after the release of “We Love Life” — the group quietly disbanded. In the more than two decades in between, Cocker positioned himself as a bit of a renaissance man, while pulling away from the Pulp lifestyle and delving into a solo career.
He waded into broadcast media, serving as a host on BBC Radio 6 Music’s “Jarvis Cocker’s Sunday Service,” wrote a memoir titled “Mother, Brother, Lover,” and made a cameo in “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” in 2005 as part of the fictional band the Weird Sisters. His bandmates? Jonny Greenwood, Jason Buckle and Pulp bass guitarist Steve Mackey.
“I have written a book, and I presented radio shows, and I enjoy those. But music, to me … it’s a way of me making sense of what has happened to me in my life,” he says. “I write about things that have happened, and I, in a way, dramatize them by putting music to it.”
“I fell in love with music at a very early age, and so it feels like a magical thing to be able to make something that you like so much,” he adds.
In this lengthy love affair with music, it was inevitable that he would return to his first love: Pulp.
“More” returns to the band’s sonic roots, with thoughtful tunes such as “Grown Ups” and “A Sunset.”
(Tom Jackson)
When the band began working on “More,” Cocker’s main concern was that his bandmates would have thought they were “being sentenced to three years’ jail time.”
“I was loath to say to the band, ‘Let’s make an album,’ just because the last two Pulp albums that we’ve done, ‘This Is Hardcore’ and ‘We Love Life,’ had taken so long to record,” he explains.
For further context, “This is Hardcore” took around three years to record. “More” would only take three weeks and was released on June 6.
“There were songs that I knew could be good, but we’d never managed to realize them properly,” he says. “And then there were newer songs, and some songs that I’d done that I tried to play in the band, “Jarvis,” but hadn’t quite worked out.”
“The thing that makes a song good … You can’t control it, and sometimes it works easily, and sometimes it doesn’t work at all … we were just lucky, maybe because we’d left it for a long time.”
He also credits the album’s swift completion to working with music producer James Ford, who previously refined tracks for a seemingly endless list of artists. Some recent highlights include Blur’s “The Ballad of Darren,” Fontaines D.C.’s “Romance” and “Forever, Howlong,” by Black Country, New Road.
“He created a really good environment for us to record in, and everybody felt quite relaxed,” Cocker says. “It seemed like it was ready. So, it was just, ‘OK, it’s ripe. Just pick it from the tree and eat it.’”
Fresh off the June release, Cocker also kick-started a tour with dates across the U.K. and Ireland. In September, he landed in Atlanta for its North American leg, which features two shows in Los Angeles.
In particular, these stand out because Pulp will play alongside LCD Soundsystem at the Hollywood Bowl on Thursday and Friday. Simply put, Murphy said, “We’re playing at the Hollywood Bowl, would you like to come play with us?” — to which Cocker replied, “That would be good.”
It’s all been going relatively swimmingly for him, who simply sticks to his ways. But who is Jarvis Cocker in 2025?
He pauses a moment before speaking.
“It’s hard to put it into words, but I came to the realization that I wanted to live, or attempt to live, more in a world of feelings than in a world of ideas,” he says, thoughtfully. “So yeah, that’s my experiment at the moment. I’ll let you know how it goes.”
Police are still appealing for anyone with information that can help their investigation to come forward.
I make £30k in 3 days doing a job nobody wants to do
This includes any witnesses who may have seen or helped Tony in Westcourt Road between 7.20pm and 7.40pm on September 11.
Detective Inspector Amanda Zinyama, of the Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team, said: “This is a tragic incident, and our thoughts are with Tony’s family and friends.
“Through our initial enquiries, it has been established that the victim and suspect are known to one another and we want to reassure members of the public that charges have now been secured and we are not looking for anyone else in connection with this investigation.”
Police presence will remain at the address as enquiries continue.
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Anthony ‘Tony’ Scarrott, 80, died on September 14 after he was taken to hospitalCredit: SUSSEX NEWS AND PICTURES
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There will be an ongoing police presence at the address as police enquiries continue
Rescuers in the rugged Eastern Sierra are searching for a Seattle man who has been missing since early September — and possibly longer — after climbing among some of California’s most remote and daunting mountain peaks.
Billy Pierson, an experienced alpinist, was in California getting in shape for an upcoming trip to Nepal, according to a comment his brother, Steve Pierson, left on Facebook.
On Aug. 9, the alpinist was hiking with a friend. “After their hike, he separated from that friend and is believed to have headed toward Inyo County,” the Inyo County Sheriff’s office said in a news release. “He was later reported missing on September 10, 2025.”
It was not immediately clear when Billy Pierson separated from his friend, or who was the person who reported him missing. The Inyo County Sheriff’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
Billy Pierson, an experienced alpinist, was in California getting in shape for an upcoming trip to Nepal.
(Inyo County Sheriff)
It is believed Pierson was attempting the Palisades Traverse, a classic and technical mountaineering route along the Sierra crest that covers close to 20 miles and crosses the summits of five mountains taller than 14,000 feet.
In addition to climbing the challenging peaks, mountaineers also often have to navigate the Palisades Glacier, one of the last true glaciers remaining in California.
Steve Pierson said his brother’s plan was to begin, or end, his epic trip at Temple Crag, a familiar landmark to seasoned Sierra climbers and hikers that towers above the magnificent, glacier-fed Big Pine Lakes.
The Inyo County Sheriff’s office, working with Inyo County Search and Rescue, scoured the area around Temple Crag with no success.
Pierson is 5’9”, 165 lbs, and was last known to be carrying a large, navy blue or gray backpack. He was wearing black and yellow shoes and liked to hike in a baseball cap with a bandana underneath.
News that Pierson is missing follows several other incidents this summer in which hikers got dangerously lost or were found dead.
On Sept. 12, an Argentinian climber fell 2,000 feet to his death on Mt. Shasta. The 45-year old tech executive had summited successfully, but lost his way on the descent, winding up on the steep and icy Wintum Glacier. He attempted a controlled slide to reach the safety of a trail below, but lost control, collided with a boulder, and eventually slid the length of the glacier.
Also in September, a San Luis Obispo County man — Kirk Thomas-Olsen, 61 — was found dead in Yosemite National Park more than 20 days after he was expected to return from his solo hike.
In August, a boy scout troop hiking in the Emigrant Wilderness north of Yosemite National Park came upon a 78-year old man who had spent a night without food, water or shelter in the mountains. He had lost his pack and seemed incoherent when the scouts found him and escorted him to safety.
Former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson speaks to BBC Breakfast’s Nina Warhurst about his brother living with dementia, and what he does to keep his own mind active.
He was speaking as part of National Playlist Day, which is used to celebrate the power of personalised music playlists for those living with dementia.
Far be it from me to tell anyone how to direct their career, but can I just say how glad I am to learn that Jason Bateman, who spent four seasons in the darkness of “Ozark,” is making a comedy again. (A “dark comedy,” but still.) That’s not the series he’s starring in at the moment for Netflix, however, but something called “DTF St. Louis,” for HBO, from “Patriot” creator Steve Conrad, which isn’t arriving until next year. Fingers crossed, we’ll all be around to see it.
In the eight-episode miniseries “Black Rabbit,” which premieres Thursday, Bateman and Jude Law play brothers Vince and Jake Friedkin, respectively, who long before the story begins were partners in a rock band, the Black Rabbits — successful enough that Vince is recognized in a bar (but not so successful that the fans can remember his name, or the name of the band). More recently, they had been partners in a far downtown Manhattan restaurant, also called Black Rabbit, though Vince’s level of current participation is muddy. (At one time, he ran the upstairs bar.) It isn’t a comedy, in spite of Vince’s Michael Bluth-like habit of dropping ironic quips into stressful situations.
The setting brings to mind “The Bear” — which is a comedy — as does its young genius chef, Roxie (Amaka Okafor); the New York Times is planning a review and New York magazine is putting her on the cover. We see that the restaurant, which has a VIP floor upstairs for horrible rich jerks, is a hit because the place is packed, and because there’s a lot of shouting in the barely pictured kitchen, but food, barely shown or talked about, is not really on the menu here. Jake is more interested in property and expansion — he has an inside track to lease the Pool Room, a real-life space in New York’s fabled Four Seasons Hotel, and he wants Roxie to run the kitchen and Estelle (Cleopatra Coleman), who is in a relationship with his old friend Wes (Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù) — now a mega successful musician, a co-owner of the Black Rabbit and a jealous guy — to design it. From camera angles and cutting, it’s clear that Vince and Estelle are attracted to one another, but as Law and Coleman have no particular chemistry, it feels more stated than felt. But it’s important.
Ṣọpẹ́ Dìrísù as Wes, a co-owner of the Black Rabbit, and Amaka Okafor as Roxie, the head chef.
(Netflix)
Vince, meanwhile, is living out west, looking like he’s ready to audition for a late-life Dennis Wilson biopic and trying to sell some valuable old coins. When he’s set up and robbed in his car, he winds up running over one of the thieves — twice. Whether by writerly intention or inattention, this will be no more of an emotional issue for Vince than it will have anything to do with the rest of the story, apart from sending him back to NYC, where he is $140,000 in the hole over gambling debts. Whenever he’s not in actual danger (which is a lot of the time), he’s weirdly happy-go-lucky.
Jake has a well-to-do ex-wife, Val (Dagmara Dominczyk), who seems nice, and a son, Hunter (Michael Cash), taking dancing lessons. They all get along fine, though Jake battles that most common of TV paternal ailments, Busy Dad Syndrome. (He does better than most.) Vince has an adult daughter, tattoo artist Gen (Odessa Young), who is not especially glad to see him back in town. Their safety will become a chip in the series’ central business, which sets Vince, and ultimately Jake, against vaguely defined mobster Joe Mancuso (Oscar-winning deaf actor Troy Kotsur, from the film “CODA,” in one of the series’ more layered performances); his sweaty idiot caricature of a wannabe tough guy son, Junior (Forrest Weber); and Junior’s less-than-efficient minder, Babbitt (Chris Coy), who is occasionally sort of likable, albeit one feels bad for sort of liking him. In the small world these characters inhabit, Mancuso was close to the brothers’ dysfunctional family back in Coney Island. But business is business.
Like most every streaming drama nowadays, “Black Rabbit” opens with a flash forward to a more exciting part of the story — here, a robbery and shooting at a crowded party — before dialing back to a calmer chronological beginning. This lets the viewer know that, though there is going to be exposition for a while, things will get crazy eventually. And they very much do, including sexual assault, murder and bad management.
Junior (Forrest Weber), Babbitt (Chris Coy) and Vince (Jason Bateman), who owes them lots of money.
(Netflix)
Jake, chasing his Pool Room dream, has his own money troubles, and the brothers’ needs will clash as one scheme after another to set things right goes wrong and their relationship rockets between heated arguments and brotherly reminiscence. It’s too easy to stop listening to the arguments, which tend to go long and not lead anywhere, but there is some relief (and nice writing) as regards the reminiscence. Still, though later episodes will reveal an early event that might explain something about Vince, it’s not enough to make one care especially what happens to them, except to worry which innocent bystanders, including the Black Rabbit staff, will be hit by shrapnel when things go boom.
A large secondary and sometimes confusing cast comes in and out to propel and complicate matters, but it’s really all about the brothers. As Vince, Bateman — who also directed the first two episodes, efficiently, with “Ozark” co-star Laura Linney helming the second two — leavens an exasperating character with his innate likability. He’s a fine actor, but he’s also Jason Bateman, America’s sweetheart. By contrast, as the tense, excitable Jake, Law doesn’t generate much warmth, or make you believe he’s actually capable of opening a high-class midtown restaurant. (The funky but chic Black Rabbit was Vince’s vision.) That may be the idea, of course. And he does love his brother.
There are only so many ways this story can go, and it does indeed go to one of them, though it’s so likely by the time we get there that it doesn’t deliver much of an emotional charge. An epilogical montage, in a complete tonal turnaround, plays like an homage to the opening of Woody Allen’s “Manhattan,” cut to Rodgers and Hart’s “I’ll Take Manhattan”; its only purpose seems to be to make you less bad than you might have otherwise felt. (Hey, Katz’s Delicatessen!) So … thanks?
Meanwhile — “DTF St. Louis!” See you next year! Knock wood.
MEXICO CITY — It was pouring buckets of rain at the Estadio GNP Seguros on Saturday night, when Oasis played one of two sold-out reunion shows in Mexico City.
Lined at the entrance were tents stuffed with bootleg tour merch and fans seeking respite from the water. You could hear the sloshing of wet socks and Adidas Sambas as they price-checked knockoff memorabilia emblazoned with the Gallagher brothers’ iconically muggy faces.
For 200 pesos, you could get a T-shirt with Noel and Liam Gallagher as fighting cats, or characters from “Peanuts” and “The Simpsons.”
While a downpour isn’t the ideal weather condition for an outdoor concert — my Bohemian FC x Oasis collab football jersey went unseen under a fashionable rain parka — it was certainly fitting for a band thatroutinely, perhapsobsessively, singsaboutrain. Yet for Mexican fans of Oasis who’ve anxiously waited years to finally see the brothers reunite, it was all sunsheeeeIIIIIINE.
Outside the entry gates, father and son Santiago and Omar Zepeda, both sporting bucket hats, had a palpable buzz radiating off them as they eagerly waited to enter the stadium. It was a multigenerationally significant day for them.
“I came for the first time with my dad in ’98 at the Palacio de Deportes to see Oasis, and now I get to bring my son,” said Santiago, who came from Guadalajara with his 14-year-old in tow. “There was a moment that I said we’ll just go without tickets and see what we do. We’ll get in because we’ll get in. I feel incredible to be able to have done what I did with my father 27 years later now with my son.”
In August of last year, the Manchester-bred Gallagher brothers — who had been openly feuding for decades — declared that war was over on the 30th anniversary of their 1994 juggernaut debut, “Definitely Maybe.”
“The guns have fallen silent. The stars have aligned. The great wait is over,” they announced. As reunion tour dates opened, and two Mexico City stops were announced, Mexican fans expressed pure elation and flooded Ticketmaster once the sale went live. As you can imagine, it was online bedlam.
Waiting in the Ticketmaster queue filled Esteban Ricardo Sainz Coronado, 24, and Sara Pedraza, 25, with dread. The young couple came in from Monterrey, Nuevo León, but it was uncertain whether they’d make it to what Coronado called “a collective reunion that’s cultural and transcends more than music history.”
Pedraza waited three hours in Ticketmaster’s virtual line, almost missing school and her chance to secure seats as she kept getting bumped off the site. “I stubbornly kept trying and after I don’t know how many attempts, it worked,” Pedraza said. “It was such a huge relief.”
Like Coronado and Sainz, the reunion tour is millions of fans’ first opportunity to see Oasis play live, as they would have been far too young or not even born yet during their heyday. For longtime Oasis heads, it was a chance to once again be in community with their favorite band.
British bands have long had a foothold in Mexico’s alternative scenes, with fans of all ages still packing bars and venues to hear Primal Scream, Blur, Pulp and, of course, Morrissey and the Smiths. These groups have had an enduring, impassioned following that has been explored in books, articles and films, with Mexicans often feeling a spiritual and cultural connection to the U.K.’s music scene stemming back to the Beatles. Oasis could have sold out shows across Mexico 10 times over.
After acrimoniously (and unsurprisingly) breaking up in 2009, the hope to ever see the Gallaghers fill a stadium with the staple of acoustic jam sessions worldwide, “Wonderwall,” dimmed. The brothers’ endless swipes at each other in the media post-breakup didn’t give fans hope they’d get back to “living forever.” Mexican fans even prayed to La Virgen de Guadalupe that the infamously combative brothers wouldn’t break up again even hours before showtime.
“As long as they don’t fight!” said Hector Garduño, who came to the show with his partner, Sofia Carrera, from Querétaro. “That’s what we want, for them not to fight.”
Gracias a la virgencita, the tour has seemingly been all love. The skies eventually cleared up on Saturday, and the stadium indeed filled with Oasis’ soaring, anthemic bangers for 2 ½ hours. For days leading up to the Mexico City date, fans in my orbit and social feeds debated how the show would compare with the crowd at Pasadena’s Rose Bowl, where Oasis played the previous weekend.
“[Mexican audiences are] on another level,” said Garduño. “I think these dudes are going to be taken by surprise. I expect jumping, screaming, crying; the emotion of hearing those songs that really move you.”
Mauri Barranco, who came to the show with her best friend, said “I feel like we give a lot of ourselves. That’s why so many artists like coming to Mexico.”
Meanwhile, Alberto Folch, from Mexico City, saw his own audience participation as a challenge. “With all the vibes, with all the emotion, we’re ready to jump, to show them what Mexico is made of,” he said. “Tonight we’re rock ‘n’ roll stars.”
The 65,000 fans in attendance undoubtedly showed up sobbing and screeching with unbridled elation. Liam Gallagher played to the locals, donning a sombrero de charro during “Wonderwall” and the show closer “Champagne Supernova.” The band sounded as if no time had passed since its salad days, with the members’ vocals and musicianship arguably tighter than ever — perhaps a positive side effect of pulling back from the rock star lifestyle now that they’re in their 50s. The sound reverberated clean across the stadium as well (shoutout to L-Acoustics, who provided the sound for the reunion tour), and was praised nonstop by fans I spoke to throughout the weekend. I heard a lot of emphatic cries of “el sonido, güey!”
I pogo’d along with my fellow “madferits” as we turned away from the stage and linked arms to do the Poznań: a signature move at every show, borrowed from Manchester City F.C. fans. During “Cigarettes & Alcohol,” we shouted every lyric and were sprayed by flying beers thrown in raucous excitement.
I’ve never felt more giddy to get splashed with spit-riddled beer — and seemingly neither did anyone around me, who shouted joyful obscenities in Spanish. Three men behind me even sobbed into each other’s chests during “Don’t Look Back in Anger” and the stadium filled with cellphone lights as Noel Gallagher crooned “Talk Tonight.”
The rain didn’t fall again, but even if it had, it would have still felt like the sun.
A judge has rejected Erik and Lyle Menendez’s petition for a new trial, ruling that additional evidence that they suffered sexual abuse at their father’s hands would not have changed the outcome of the trial that has put them in prison for more than 35 years for gunning down their parents.
The ruling, handed down by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge William C. Ryan on Monday, is the latest blow to the brothers’ bid for release. Both were denied parole during lengthy hearings in late August.
A habeas corpus petition filed on behalf of the brothers in 2023 argued they should have been able to present additional evidence at trial that their father, Jose Menendez, was sexually abusive.
The new evidence included a 1988 letter that Erik Menendez sent to his cousin, Andy Cano, saying he was abused into his late teens. There were also allegations made by Roy Rosselló, a former member of the boy band Menudo, who claimed Jose Menendez raped him.
The brothers have long argued they were in fear for their lives that their father would keep abusing them, and that their parents would kill them to cover up the nightmarish conditions in their Beverly Hills home.
Prosecutors contended the brothers killed their parents with shotguns in 1989 to get access to their massive inheritance, and have repeatedly highlighted Erik and Lyle’s wild spending spree in the months that followed their parents’ deaths. .
“Neither piece of evidence adds to the allegations of abuse the jury already considered, yet found that the brothers planned, then executed that plan to kill their abusive father and complicit mother,” Ryan wrote. “The court finds that these two pieces of evidence presented here would have not have resulted in a hung jury nor in the conviction of a lesser instructed offense.”
Ryan agreed with Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman that the petition should not grant the brothers a new trial because the abuse evidence would not have changed the fact that the brothers planned and carried out the execution-style killings in the family living room.
Ryan wrote the new evidence would not have resulted in the trial court proceeding differently because the brothers could not show they experienced a fear of “imminent peril.”
A spokesperson for the group of more than 30 Menendez relatives who have been fighting for the brothers’ release did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for the district attorney’s office was not immediately available for comment.
The gruesome killings occurred after the brothers used cash to buy the shotguns and attacked their parents while they watched a movie in the family living room.
Prosecutors said Jose Menendez was struck five times with shotgun blasts, including in the back of the head, and Kitty Menendez crawled on the floor wounded before the brothers reloaded and fired a final, fatal blast.
The petition rejected this week was one of three paths the Menendez legal team has pursued in seeking freedom for the brothers. Another judge earlier this year resentenced them to 50 years to life for the murders, making them eligible for parole after they were originally sentenced to life in prison.
Both were denied release at their first parole hearing, but could end up before the state panel again in as soon as 18 months. Clemency petitions are also still pending before Gov. Gavin Newsom.
THEY were lovers from opposite ends of society — a runaway aristocrat and a convicted rapist who sparked a nationwide manhunt when they went on the run to hide their secret newborn baby from social services.
Now, in a dramatic twist, Mark Gordon’s sister has lifted the lid on her convict brother’s twisted past that led him on the path to a toxic “Romeo and Juliet” romance – culminating in the tragic death of their child.
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Mark started life as a shy ‘mummy’s boy’, according to his sisterCredit: PA
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Mark Gordon’s half sister Karen Satchell said he was nicknamed “The Preacher” in jailCredit: Louis Wood News Group Newspapers Ltd
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Mark met Constance Marten in an incense shop in Tottenham, north London, in 2014Credit: PA
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Karen believes Marten was the ‘boss’ in their marriageCredit: PA
Gordon got an extended four-year licence as he met the threshold for dangerousness, meaning he has a high risk of reoffending.
It means after serving his sentence, he will remain under state supervision and have certain restrictions.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun, Karen Satchell, 54, from North London, reveals for the first time how her jailbird brother dreamed of a new life – and fathered another child before vanishing off-grid with Marten.
And he became increasingly paranoid in what Karen has called a “Romeo and Juliet” style relationship, with lovers from two wildly different families.
It is understood Gordon met Marten’s relatives shortly after they began dating around 2014, and even went to their house before Marten became estranged from them.
Moment cops arrest and ask Constance Marten ‘where is your child?’ after she killed newborn baby while on the run with rapist partner
With Constance, 38, Gordon had five children – four of whom were taken off them after concerns over their caring abilities, and the fifth, Victoria.
Gordon grew up as a “shy” lad in Birmingham, attending the state comprehensive Yardley Primary School.
While future-wife Marten – the daughter of Queen Elizabeth II’s former page – reminisced about childhood picnics and naked siestas in hay bales at her country mansion in Dorset, Gordon, the youngest of seven, was digging up dirt in his yard and chasing his sisters around with worms.
Half-sister Karen remembers him as a “good kid”, adding: “A proper naughty little brother but more mischievous than anything bad.”
He went to church weekly with his tight-knit family, and his mum Sylvia was a licensed pastor.
He totally shut down and was in a daze. He wasn’t aware of what was really going on. He looked younger than he was. To think of him with felonies is unbelievable.
Karen Satchell on Mark Gordon’s rape arrest
And while Marten’s family had annual skiing holidays, Gordon’s went to Butlins each year, where he once won some money and flowers in a mother-and-son competition.
Karen said: “They were standing on the stage and Mark was asked a few questions about his mum.
“They thought they were the most bonded.”
But he was described as “a bit of a loner” and preferring instead to play by himself, or hang out with Karen and her friends, following them around and threatening to snitch on her to his mum if she was ever up to no good.
When he was still young, Sylvia moved to America to try to build a better life for them, while Mark and Karen stayed in Britain with a nanny.
They were excited when, aged 11 and 15, they joined Sylvia in New York – but it was a culture shock.
They started off at a run-down school in the Bronx, plagued by bad behaviour and knives. Then moved to a better school, but had to catch two trains and two buses to get there.
A year later, the family relocated to a three-bed, single-storey home in a predominantly white neighbourhood in Florida while their mum studied to be a nurse.
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Moment cops ask Constance Marten ‘where is your child?’ as she is arrestedCredit: Metropolitan Police
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CCTV footage of Constance Marten and Mark Gordon in Flower and Dean Walk in Whitchapel, LondonCredit: PA
Karen said: “We became popular – everybody wanted to hear us talk because of our accent.
“The girls loved Mark. They knew where he lived and followed him home.
“They would knock on the door, and he was hiding. He didn’t want to talk to them. He was really shy. I never saw him with a girlfriend.
“When I got to the age when I had a boyfriend, he tended to stay home in his room. I was like ‘come out of your room, talk to some girls’. He said ‘get out, leave me alone’.”
‘He shut down’ after rape arrest
Their happy family life turned upside down, however, when he was arrested for rape in 1989.
They panicked when he failed to return home and spent all evening searching the neighbourhood for him, fearing for his safety.
Mum Sylvia, who was training to be a nurse, was away in Jamaica at the time but flew back in a panic as Mark’s siblings phoned the police to make a missing persons report.
But when Sylvia turned up at the police station, she was devastated to hear her last-born son had made a taped confession to rape.
Karen said: “We were devastated. He never spoke. He stopped speaking.
“He totally shut down and was in a daze. He wasn’t aware of what was really going on.
“He looked younger than he was. To think of him with felonies is unbelievable.”
He was convicted of armed kidnapping, multiple counts of armed sexual battery and other charges in 1994.
His family visited him frequently in prison, but he never spoke about any hardships inside.
He had been nicknamed ‘The Preacher’, thought to have been because he was often quoting the bible to get through.
But Karen said he also became incredibly studious.
He got a degree after studying electrical engineering, IT and business management – and built up the life he wanted to lead in his head.
‘He’s somebody you don’t want to cross’
When he returned to Britain in 2010, Karen says he was different – much more philosophical and a “proper naturalist” who worked out and was into healthy eating.
She often saw him having blended vegetables or raw eggs, and was into herbal tea and holistic healing.
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Bodycam footage issued by the Met showing officers before they discovered the body of baby Victoria in a Lidl bagCredit: PA
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A shed in Lower Roedale Allotments, East Sussex, where the Lidl bag was foundCredit: PA
Karen also described him as cunning, charming, but still incredibly private.
She threw a welcome home party for him at her flat in Palmers Green, but he never went.
In fact, she didn’t hear from him for six months after he landed.
Karen said: “He went quiet and we didn’t know where he was.
“I was ringing, trying to go to prisons and agencies, trying to find out where he went. I had been waiting for him.
“When he was on his feet, he showed up. I was like ‘Where have you been?’.
“He was smiling and laughing, saying: ‘I’m alright, sis.’
There’s a look in his eyes that would make you shut up. You shut up and agree with him. He does these weird stares.
Karen Satchellon her brother’s chilling look
He would often turn up to see his sister wearing smart suits, he went to business conventions and became interested in investments, stocks and bonds. She said he was articulate and productive.
He “never drank, never smoked, never swore, never raised his voice” and told his family he always had different ventures and sales meetings going on.
But she also remembered he sometimes had a strange look in his eyes.
She said: “This is what got him through his jail time. There’s a look in his eyes that would make you shut up.
“You shut up and agree with him. He does these weird stares.
“He’s not a person who had to do anything action-wise. You would look at him and go ‘leave that man alone’.
“He looks like somebody you don’t want to cross with. But when you get past that, he’s quite shy. I think that’s his defence mechanism.”
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CCTV shows Constance Marten, Mark Gordon and baby Victoria in a German doner kebab shopCredit: PA
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Footage of Constance Marten with baby Victoria and Mark Gordon (obscured in car)Credit: PA
He also never told her exactly where he lived, nor exactly what he did.
Within the first year of coming back to Britain, he had his first daughter, who Karen never found out about until she was two.
She went to meet her for the first time when she was three, when Mark was living with her and her mother in Ilford, East London.
Karen said: “We were shocked. We didn’t know he had a daughter. He was a private guy.
“When I met the girl, they had been together for a little while. She was lovely. So beautiful. He took care of his kids really well.”
She added: “I think he always wanted to be a dad.”
They broke up shortly after for unknown reasons, just before Mark met Constance Marten in an incense shop in Tottenham, North London, in 2014.
Paranoid he was being followed
After this, Karen says he became noticeably more paranoid, often talking about people following or tracking him.
He moved around after dark, whispered on the phone and asked to meet his sister in parks at strange hours.
When he visited Karen, he would stay for a few minutes, ask about them and just laugh if asked where he was staying.
He would say: “It’s alright, sis, you don’t need to know.”
He stayed with her in 2015 for around a month, coming in and out regularly at night, before suddenly leaving without a fuss.
Karen remembered: “I’d say Where do you live? Where are you going?
“I want to help like a big sister would. He just said it’s okay, I don’t need it, I’m good.
“They went travelling a lot. I asked him how he could go to all these places.
“He just did a little smirk and said: ‘Don’t worry, you will get there one day.’”
Gordon and Marten’s troubles escalated shortly after they got married in Peru, in a ceremony that is not recognised in the UK.
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Constance Marten being questioned by her barrister Francis FitzGibbon KC at the Old BaileyCredit: PA
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The shed in Brighton where baby Victoria was foundCredit: PA
They then had their first baby in 2017 after living in a tent together in Wales to escape Marten’s family and their private investigators.
Karen said: “He called me once from Wales and asked me to help him out, and if he could stay at my address.
“He called and said, ‘What are you doing? ‘ but said he couldn’t talk right now because ‘they are listening’. It was weird.
“He said, ‘You can’t help me’. He said he had gone to see his wife. He was hiding out, whispering.
“He said I’m visiting my wife. I asked what was wrong, and he just said ‘Long story, something to do with the baby’.
“He said he was trying to get his wife moved out. He wanted to come back to London.”
His family only knew about his first two babies with Constance.
They never met her, and don’t even know the gender of the second two children and were never told anything about their battle with social services.
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CCTV shows Constance Marten holding baby Victoria under her coatCredit: PA
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The burnt-out Peugeot 206 on the side of the M61Credit: PA
The couple were supposed to spend Christmas 2019 with Karen, but Mark arrived without her, saying she was away and that “It’s complicated”.
Karen said: “I said, ‘Why, who is she? The Queen? Then it turned out she was linked to the Queen!”
She reckons Marten was the “boss” in their marriage, while Mark would have guided her decision-making.
And she insisted the couple just “wanted to be naturalists”.
She last spoke to Mark about a year before he went on the run, which would have been during the time he and Constance were trying to keep the latest pregnancy hidden from everyone.
JERUSALEM — Palestinian Oscar-winning director Basel Adra said Israeli soldiers conducted a raid at his home in the occupied West Bank over the weekend, searching for him and going through his wife’s phone.
Israeli settlers attacked his village Saturday, injuring two of his brothers and one cousin, Adra told the Associated Press. He accompanied them to the hospital. While there, he said that he heard from family in the village that nine Israeli soldiers had stormed his home.
The soldiers asked his wife, Suha, of his whereabouts and went through her phone while his 9-month-old daughter was home. They also briefly detained one of his uncles, he said.
Adra spent the night outside the village, unable to get home and check on his family because soldiers were blocking the village entrance and he was scared of being detained, he said.
Israel’s military said soldiers were in the village after Palestinians had thrown rocks, injuring two Israeli civilians. It said its forces were still in the village, searching the area and questioning people.
Adra said settlers attacked the Palestinians on their land, and denied throwing rocks or seeing anyone from the village do so.
Videos recorded by Adra’s cousin and viewed by the AP showed settlers attacking a man Adra identified as his brother, Adam, who was hospitalized with bruising to his left hand, elbow and chest, according to hospital records shared with the AP.
In another video, a settler chases a solidarity activist through an olive grove, tackling her to the ground.
Adra has spent his career as a journalist and filmmaker chronicling settler violence in Masafer Yatta, the southern reaches of the West Bank where he was born. After settlers attacked his co-director, Hamdan Ballal, in March, he told the AP that he felt they were being targeted more intensely since winning the Oscar.
He described Saturday’s events as “horrific.”
“Even if you are just filming the settlers, the army comes and chases you, searches your house,” he said. “The whole system is built to attack us, to terrify us, to make us very scared.”
Another co-director, Yuval Abraham, said he was “terrified for Basel.”
“What happened today in his village, we’ve seen this dynamic again and again, where the Israeli settlers brutally attack a Palestinian village and later on the army comes, and attacks the Palestinians,” Abraham said.
“No Other Land,” which won an Oscar this year for best documentary, depicts the struggle by residents of the Masafer Yatta area to stop the Israeli military from demolishing their villages. Ballal and Adra made the joint Palestinian-Israeli production with Israeli directors Abraham and Rachel Szor.
The film has won a string of international awards, starting at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2024. It has also drawn ire in Israel and abroad, such as when Miami Beach proposed ending the lease of a movie theater that screened the documentary.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East War, along with the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. The Palestinians want all three for a future state and view Jewish settlement growth as a major obstacle to a two-state solution.
Israel has built well over 100 settlements, home to more than 500,000 settlers who have Israeli citizenship. The 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Western-backed Palestinian Authority administering population centers.
The Israeli military designated Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank as a live-fire training zone in the 1980s and ordered residents, mostly Arab Bedouins, to be expelled. Around 1,000 residents have largely remained, but soldiers regularly move in to demolish homes, tents, water tanks and olive orchards, and Palestinians fear outright expulsion could come at any time.
During the war in Gaza, Israel has killed hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank during wide-scale military operations. There has also been a rise in settler attacks on Palestinians, as well as a surge in Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
Sophomore running back Arman Papazyan was supposed to be the backup to his brother, Gev, this season at Glendale High. Then Gev went down with a season-ending injury. Little brother Arman came to the rescue.
He had 215 yards rushing in 32 carries in a loss to Marshall. He has continued to be a productive offensive weapon for 1-2 Glendale. He has 349 yards and five touchdowns in three games.
“He’s been carrying the load,” coach Manuel Lemus said. …
Several football teams are enjoying turnaround seasons. Westlake has gone from 0-10 to 4-0. Bellflower is 3-0 after going 0-10. L.A. University is 4-0 after going 2-9 last season, while L.A. Marshall and Norco are 4-0 after finishing 3-7 last season. …
Banning improved to 4-0 on Friday night with a 21-20 win over Garfield in which the Pilots stopped a two-point conversion attempt to win. Mauricio Ortiz Jr. made the game-saving tackle.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email [email protected].
Watching 6-foot-6, 220-pound Connor Ohl of Newport Harbor High play water polo is similar to a Great White Shark sighting. You’re stunned and in awe.
He’s water polo’s version of a speeding dolphin in the pool, able to accelerate so fast with his long arms and powerful legs that few can stay with him. He won the Southern Section Division 1 50-yard freestyle title last spring and broke 20 seconds in a league meet (19.79), so beware to those who think he’s not as fast as advertised.
Then comes his size and strength. He could be a football player because physicality comes naturally. Being the youngest of three water polo playing brothers, it was sink or swim in the Ohl household growing up in Greenwich, Conn. One brother plays for Stanford, where Connor will soon join him. Another plays at Princeton.
Connor moved to Orange County last year for his junior season so he could be part of what he calls “the water polo hub of America.”
This past summer, he was the youngest player on the USA junior national team that earned a silver medal at the under-20 world championships in Croatia.
“It was such a crazy experience,” he said.
First there was playing the host team in front of screaming fans in an indoor pool. “Oh my God, It was so loud,” he said. “They had drummers. You couldn’t hear yourself think.”
Then there was playing Serbia, known for its physicality. He was a boy going against men. “It’s insane,” he said. “Some are built like refrigerators.”
What Ohl learned from his international experience will help him immensely during a high school season in which Newport Harbor is the defending Southern Section champion and heavily favored to win again. The Sailors are off to a 6-0 start.
Ben Liechty, Peter Castillo, Connor Ohl and Gavin Appeldorn, from left, represented Newport Harbor at the Under-20 World Championships in Croatia.
(Courtesy of Newport Harbor water polo)
“Going from high school water polo to the junior level is like night and day,” he said. “These juniors have been playing basically their whole life — Spain, Hungary, Croatia. They worship water polo. It’s made me a lot more physical. Coming back to high school, it’s made me more confident to defend and control people with my strength and size.”
With the arrival of the Anderson brothers, Tyler and Sean, from JSerra, Newport Harbor starts out as perhaps the best team in the country.
“We could be a football team with as big as we are in water polo,” Ohl said.
Corona del Mar, JSerra, Oaks Christian and Harvard-Westlake hope to offer resistance.
Ohl is the latest Southern California product who can’t wait to represent the USA in the Olympic Games, which happen to be coming to Los Angeles in 2028. The Dodd brothers, Ryder and Chase, from JSerra and Huntington Beach, played in the 2024 Olympic Games.
It will be one of the toughest teams to make because of the experience and depth with so many players back from 2024.
“My chances are as good as anyone else,” Ohl said. “That’s my dream. I just want to represent my country at the Olympics.”
Meanwhile, if you want to see someone who can swim as fast as a fish, check out a Newport Harbor water polo match. That’s Connor Ohl, the speeding bullet.
A federal grand jury has charged two brothers in Southern California with tax evasion on more than $1.1 million in income they allegedly received in part from a years-long scheme selling tee times on local golf courses.
Se Youn “Steve” Kim, 41, and his identical twin brother, Hee Youn “Ted” Kim, 41, were arrested Thursday morning by federal authorities and pleaded not guilty.
From 2021 to 2023, the Kim brothers’ tee time brokering business scooped up thousands of reservation slots at golf courses across the U.S., including at least 17 public golf courses in Southern California, according to the indictment filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court.
The brothers used online platforms including KakaoTalk, a Korean instant messaging app, to reach their customers. Federal prosecutors say that by quickly nabbing popular early morning tee times almost immediately after they were available to the public, the brothers “created a monopoly” of Southern California golf courses.
The prevalence of tee-time brokering was reported by The Times last year, in which scores of local golfers shared frustrations over their inability to secure a tee time on public courses in L.A.
“Finally, it’s justice,” said Joseph Lee, a vocal critic of tee time brokers who helped collect evidence and met with federal prosecutors during their investigation of the Kim brothers. “For a long time, L.A. golfers have been frustrated by these illegal tee time brokers and their resale market. Authorities have finally recognized the seriousness of the issue.”
Anthony Solis, the attorney representing Ted Kim, said he did not immediately have a response on behalf of his client. The attorney representing Steve Kim did not respond to a message seeking comment.
Federal prosecutors said the brothers had customers pay reservation fees to their personal accounts via Venmo, Zelle, and other applications. The tee time brokering business netted the brothers nearly $700,000 between 2021 and 2023, according to the indictment. The brothers, who also worked as MRI technicians, are accused of willfully failing to report a combined $1.1 million in income to the Internal Revenue Service for 2022 and 2023.
The Kim brothers are also accused of failing to pay taxes that the IRS had assessed. Rather than paying off mounting tax debts, the indictment alleges that the brothers made lavish purchases at Chanel, Cartier, Prada and Louis Vuitton.
In a brief interview with The Times last year, Ted Kim said that he used up to five devices and relied on unspecified friends to secure tee times. He said he is on the same playing field as every other golfer in L.A. and does not use bots to game the system.
“It’s not like I’m taking advantage of technology. I’m booking myself,” Kim told The Times in an interview. “I’m not doing anything illegal.”
Kim told the newspaper that he profited a couple thousand dollars a month, and framed his business as a way of helping elderly Korean golfers without tech savvy to navigate the online golf reservation system.
“I’m just helping Korean seniors, because they have a right to play golf, because all the Koreans play golf, right? Without my help, they actually struggle,” he said.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
SANTA YNEZ — Shaun Cassidy steers his Dodge Ram 250 into the parking lot of the Maverick Saloon and throws open the truck’s passenger door, refrigerated air whooshing out of the cab, where he sits behind the wheel wearing sunglasses, black jeans and a black T-shirt.
The onetime teen idol who topped Billboard’s Hot 100 in 1977 with his chirpy cover of the Crystals’ “Da Doo Ron Ron” — this was seven years after Cassidy’s mother, Shirley Jones, and his half brother, David Cassidy, hit No. 1 as the Partridge Family with “I Think I Love You” — has made a lunch reservation at a vineyard not far from where he lives in Santa Barbara County so the two of us can talk about his upcoming concert tour.
“But the place is as big as Knott’s Berry Farm, and I didn’t want to spend 20 minutes looking for you,” he says, with a laugh. “That’s why I thought better to pick you up here.”
The drive also allows Cassidy, 66, to show off a bit of the picturesque region he’s called home since 2011, when he moved from Hidden Hills with his wife, Tracey, and their four children. (He has three more children from two previous marriages.) “It’s not as remote as it was before the pandemic,” says Cassidy, who’s spent the last few decades working behind the scenes in television. Through the truck’s windows, a panini shop and a microblading clinic roll by. “COVID happened, and suddenly it became part of Los Angeles — a lot of new people,” he says.
“But I grew up in L.A. and New York” — Cassidy’s dad was the actor Jack Cassidy — “and I always envied people that came from somewhere else. My folks told us, ‘Don’t worry, we’re gonna buy a farm in Pennsylvania or move upstate,’ and it never happened.” Here in the Santa Ynez Valley, Cassidy adds, “I’ve managed to manifest the family life that my father always told me was important but somehow couldn’t find for himself.”
Now he’s leaving home for his most extensive run of shows in more than 40 years.
Cassidy’s tour, which kicks off Saturday at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry and has dates scheduled through March, will revisit the lightweight pop pleasures of the musical career he maintained alongside his role as Joe Hardy on TV’s “The Hardy Boys Mysteries.” As the younger brother of an established heartthrob, Cassidy came in hot: His self-titled debut for Warner Bros. Records went platinum within months and spun off three Top 10 singles in “That’s Rock ’n’ Roll,” “Da Doo Ron Ron” and “Hey Deanie”; Cassidy was even nominated for best new artist at the Grammy Awards in 1978, where he turned up onstage in a white pantsuit at age 19 for a bum-waggling rendition of “That’s Rock ’n’ Roll.”
“This young man,” proclaimed the show’s host, John Denver, “is definitely going places.”
Shaun Cassidy at the 20th Grammy Awards in Los Angeles in 1978.
(UPI / Bettmann Archive / Getty Images)
Four more LPs came in quick succession, ending with the willfully eccentric “Wasp,” for which Cassidy recruited Todd Rundgren as his producer. Then, following a 1980 gig at Houston’s Astrodome, Cassidy abruptly quit music to focus on writing and acting, which he describes as his real passion.
“I didn’t love being famous,” he says, as we pull onto a dirt road approaching Vega Vineyard & Farm. “But I think I needed to be famous. I came from a family where everyone was well known, and I didn’t want to go through life being someone’s kid or someone’s brother. So I had to sort of step out into the spotlight and announce myself, and once that was done, I could figure out what I want to do.”
Why return to the stage now? For one thing, Cassidy says he’s singing better at the moment than he ever has — a claim supported by his old friend Bernie Taupin.
“Shaun’s voice has matured in the best way possible,” says the lyricist known for his half-century-long collaboration with Elton John. “But the other thing is that he’s a born raconteur.”
Indeed, Cassidy’s road show, which he’s been workshopping sporadically since 2019, is a songs-and-stories affair in which he looks back on an eventful life he has yet to recount in a book. “You have to be fearless and brutally honest when you write a memoir,” he says, pointing to Patti Smith’s “Just Kids” (2010) as one worth aspiring to. “David wrote a s— book, and my mother wrote a s— book, so I feel a bit of responsibility to represent my family accurately and honestly.”
We’re seated now at a picnic table in the shade, where a server has brought over several bottles from Cassidy’s line of wines — the line is called My First Crush, which is perfect — and a couple of Greek salads. “I don’t think there’s anything I’d be scared to write,” Cassidy says. “My bigger fear would be hurting people.”
Who have you used as a comparison point to explain your ’70s stardom to your youngest child? She has the poster on her wall: Harry Styles. And I didn’t say it to her; her mother did: “You know, your father was that guy.” My daughter’s like, “That old in guy there? Not possible.” But there was a chain you could tie me into. My record had been No. 1 a week or two before Elvis died, so when that happened, lots of reporters called me: “How do you feel about Elvis passing? How do you feel about walking in the King’s shoes?” I was like, “If he’s dead at 42, I don’t want to be in those shoes.”
Did you actually say that to a reporter? I was too polite. But there’s a lot of truth in it. Ricky Nelson had just been a guest on “The Hardy Boys,” and I remember thinking that I didn’t want to be guest starring on a TV show in 20 years. Look, my brother David didn’t handle fame well. I had a model for what not to do, and I had a model for what to do: my mother, who’s 91 and lives five minutes away and is as gracious and lovely and happy a human being as you’ll ever meet.
I like to say I’m in show business, but I’m not of it. I love the work and the creativity — I’m not a red carpet guy. She never was either. She was like, “They tell me where to go, I show up, I do it.” And people love her.
There’s a great photo of you in the L.A. Times in 1978 standing in your backyard next to a swimming pool. I got “The Hardy Boys” when I was 18 — still living at home with my mom in Beverly Hills. My parents are separated — my father died while I was shooting the pilot, which was pretty traumatic — and I’m like, I gotta get out of here. The family’s business manager calls a bank and says, “He’s top of show on a new series making $2,500 a week.” They got me a loan to buy a house without a down payment. So I went and bought a house on the weekend while my mother was out of town.
Was she pissed? No, she wasn’t. She was happy for me — sort of. Yeah, maybe. I don’t know.
You went through the whole emotional spectrum in that answer. It was weird. I only lived there for like a year because now I’m making a lot of money, so the business manager says, “You need to buy real estate and you need to spend more money,” which is dumb, as it turns out. Keep that little house you bought with your first check and put the rest of it in the stock market, and you won’t need to worry about anything forever.
So somebody finds me a place on Mulholland. Warren Beatty is over here, Brando and Nicholson are over here — Valley view, Beverly Hills view, on a promontory with a pool. This is the house in the picture. When I first go up to see it, there’s a recording truck in the driveway and all this recording equipment inside. Fleetwood Mac are there doing something. I’d met Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.
Shirley Jones and Shaun Cassidy at the 73rd Tony Awards in New York in 2019.
(Bruce Glikas / WireImage)
What, as proud Warner Bros. recording artists? Just at parties in L.A. before they joined Fleetwood Mac. I was out all the time. My parents sent me to boarding school in Pennsylvania in ’73 — I ditched the entire time on a train into New York to go to CBGB’s and Max’s Kansas City. Danny Fields took me to CBGB’s to see the Ramones when he was managing them. And why did I know Danny Fields when I was 15? Because he was writing for 16 Magazine where [editor in chief] Gloria Stavers was putting pictures of me in there with no record deal: “It’s another Cassidy — isn’t he cute?”
Danny was interesting. He’d managed Iggy Pop, and I knew Iggy — Jim — from hanging out on Sunset because this was the time Jim was living in Hollywood kind of between jobs. Smart guy — big influence on me. Early on, I played Rodney Bingenheimer’s club. I’m there shirtless with a bow tie, screaming, looking kind of like Iggy at 14 or 15.
It’s wild that your most chaotic years happened before you were even 18. They cleaned me up. I was on “The Hardy Boys” playing a character who really couldn’t look like a punk. My earring had to go.
You ever feel hemmed in by the job? No, because I was playing a character, and my identity wasn’t tied to the success of the show. Miguel Ferrer was one of my closest friends, and his dad, Joe — José Ferrer, real actor’s actor — I remember he said to me, “So, my boy, you’re thinking of going into the business? Let me give you a piece of advice: I have known success and failure, and they are both impostors.” He took it from Rudyard Kipling, I think. But it stuck with me. Anything I did, even “Wasp” — I don’t view that remotely as a failure. I view it actually as a bold awakening.
One of the great pop-idol freak-outs, 1980’s “Wasp” found Cassidy alternately crooning, yowling and barking his way through new-wave-y covers of tunes by the likes of David Bowie, the Who and Talking Heads while backed by members of Rundgren’s group Utopia.
“All I wanted to do was work with Todd,” says Cassidy, who’d been unhappy making “Room Service” in 1979 “because there was so much pressure from the record company to dive into disco, which I was never a fan of and which felt completely inauthentic for me.” By that time, Rundgren had produced hip records for the New York Dolls and the Patti Smith Group in addition to scoring hits of his own like “I Saw the Light” and “Hello It’s Me.” “He said to me, ‘You’re an actor — let’s do some acting.’ So we created some characters and experimented with different things.”
The album bombed. “My audience wasn’t ready for it, and there was no new audience showing up on FM radio that was gonna embrace me,” says Cassidy. “I think eight people bought it.”
Having been told by a Warner Bros. executive that he should go away — “And he was 100% right” — Cassidy “stayed home for the ’80s,” he says. “My big spending spree would be Friday night. I’d take my rock-star money to Crown Books and bring home $250 worth of books in my Porsche.”
In 1993, he let his brother lure him into co-starring in the musical “Blood Brothers” on Broadway.
“I turned him down three times,” says Cassidy, as we open a second bottle of wine. “I already had a deal at Universal as a writer with an office and an assistant, and I’d sold a couple movies for television. I was on my way, and David’s pitching me: ‘No, no, no — we can be the kings of Broadway!’” He takes a sip. “As it turned out, it was great — really emotionally satisfying. And the show was a big hit.” (David died from liver failure in 2017.)
Yet “Blood Brothers” was enough limelight for Shaun, who quickly turned back to TV. “American Gothic,” the first show he created, premiered in 1995 — an achievement that, he says, “meant a lot more than having ‘Da Doo Ron Ron’ as a No. 1 record.” Since then he’s been an executive producer on “Cover Me,” “Cold Case,” “The Agency” and “New Amsterdam,” among other series.
“He reinvented a whole new Shaun Cassidy career,” says Steve Lukather, the Toto guitarist who’s been friends with Cassidy since he appeared in an episode of “The Hardy Boys.” Cassidy’s wife, who’s also worked in TV, didn’t even know he’d been a musician when they met on one of his shows.
“I said, ‘Where you from?’ and Tracey said, ‘Miami,’” the singer recalls. “I said, ‘Oh, I played Miami.’ She goes, ‘What position?’ ”
Still, Lukather reckons that more recently his pal “started missing being onstage a little bit. He knows where it’s at.” Cassidy, who plans to play bass in the show, called Lukather not long ago for some guidance on the instrument. “I told him to play simple — don’t overthink it. It’s not like he’s going out and doing the Mahavishnu set.”
It’s half past 3, and Cassidy has a virtual pitch meeting for a new show at 4 p.m. But first he has to pick up his youngest daughter from school, so we hop back in his truck and head there from the vineyard.
On the ride he says he’s been working on a couple of new songs — the first of his own that he’s recorded since the handful he placed on his albums back in the day alongside stuff by pros like Eric Carmen, Brian Wilson and Carole Bayer Sager. One of them sounds like it could’ve been cut by Mel Tormé, he says. “The other one, it’s very anthemic — I don’t know, maybe like the Killers.”
“It’s been fun to see him to go the piano instead of the computer as an outlet for his passion for storytelling,” Tracey tells me later, though of course Cassidy knows that fans will show up to his gigs wanting to hear the classics.
Who did you long to be at the height of your teen idolhood? First concert I saw was the Rolling Stones at the Forum in 1972, with Stevie Wonder opening. I took pictures and put those pictures on my wall. Mick and Keith in ’72 — that was a show. I saw David Bowie on “Diamond Dogs” in ’74. And I saw Iggy a lot. Somewhere in between those three is where I wanted to be. Obviously, I was safer than that.
What do you see when you watch the kid singing “That’s Rock ’n’ Roll” at the Grammys? He’s confident, but he’s not cocky. I remember afterwards Lou Rawls said to me, “Son, never turn your back on the audience.” I said, “They seemed to like it when I shook my ass.”
You lost best new artist that night. So did Foreigner. Lou Gramm somewhere is still upset.
I wondered if you remembered who else was in the category. Debby, of course.
Debby Boone, who won — another nepo baby. Hey, if your dad owns a hardware store and you take over the hardware store, I have no issue with that at all. I don’t know who else. Andy Gibb?
Stephen Bishop and Andy Gibb. I knew Andy a little bit.
Kind of a similar deal to you, right? Younger brother of a pop sensation. He had a different challenge, though. This is me being shrink, but I don’t think that anybody got to really know who he was, because Barry [Gibb] was so strong. And I don’t think Andy had a problem with that. I’m sure growing up, he was like, “I want to be a Bee Gee too,” and Barry said, “OK, here’s how we do that.”
David Cassidy, left, with Shaun Cassidy, circa 1975.
(Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images)
What was your relationship like with David in terms of the advice you took or rejected? David never gave me advice. I think it was very difficult for him because he was at a career low point. I would ask him, “What do you think of this?” and I could tell he was conflicted about it. It wasn’t that he didn’t want me to have success. But he was in a place where it was hard for him to enjoy my success, I think. And I knew that, so I didn’t talk to him about it.
What’d you think when he posed nude on the cover of Rolling Stone? I thought it was dumb. That was his “Wasp” moment — I thought, You’re putting a bullet in something here, whether you know it or not. Now, I’m not so sure. It’s a cool picture. All I know is he complained a lot in the press. He had a chip on his shoulder because he wasn’t Eric Clapton or Jimi Hendrix or somebody that he revered. It’s like, “OK, play as well as Hendrix and maybe you’ll be Hendrix. But you’re a really charming guy on a big hit television show, and 8 billion people are in love with you. Tell me why this is a bad deal.”
Why did you understand that and he didn’t? Because I’m Shirley’s son and he’s not. And I got to watch him — I saw how you can handle it differently.
You never burned to be taken seriously? I took myself seriously. I’m very secure, and that’s rare in show business. I never needed the love of the audience to feel like I was whole.
You got that love elsewhere, and David didn’t. He would say that.
Was he not right? Maybe. I mean, to my mother I could do no wrong — to the point that she had no credibility. But if you’re going to err on one side, that’s a better side than, “Where are my parents?” Both of his parents were actors — they were gone a lot. Then his father left his mother to marry a movie star and have me. David would have every reason in the world to hate me as a little boy, but he didn’t.
My brother was a really sweet — I’m gonna get choked up talking about him — he was a really sweet soul who got hurt and couldn’t overcome that. I’m not a psychiatrist, but I spent a lot of time with him. Again, “Blood Brothers” was great because it was an equalizer. I wasn’t the flavor of the moment, and neither was he. That’s one of the things I miss most about him — that he was the only person in the world I could talk to about our experience.
Dominick Catalano waited four years to be the starting quarterback at Corona Centennial. He’s taken control of a team that’s 2-1 and facing No. 1 Mater Dei at home on Friday night.
Catalano, though, got a start in the season opener last season because of an injury to Husan Longstreet and made the most of his debut against one of the best defenses in the state — Mater Dei. He completed 17 of 32 passes for 188 yards and two touchdowns with two interceptions in a 42-25 loss.
He’s more mature and confident going into Friday’s game. He still gets all A’s on his report card and is headed to Pomona-Pitzer, which isn’t exactly easy to get into.
Photo courtesy of Monica Acosta showing dad and son smiling. Rick Curtis and Sean Curtis before Crean Lutheran faced Capistrano Valley last week. Crean won. pic.twitter.com/sZ7Wj1n9o6
His brother, Anthony, served as Centennial’s interim coach two weeks ago against Santa Margarita, and the Catalano brothers almost pulled off a victory in overtime.
Coach Matt Logan appreciated Dominick’s loyalty waiting his turn to be a starter, but it was inevitable. He’s a former Centennial ball boy. He’s passed for 757 yards and eight touchdowns and must deal with the expected Mater Dei pass rush on Friday.
It’s the third Trinity League team the Huskies are playing in nonleague games, having beaten Servite and lost to Santa Margarita.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email [email protected].
A recently fired California Legislature staff member filed a lawsuit this week against Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas claiming that the lawmaker and his brother, Rick, retaliated against her for reporting sexual harassment and alleged ethics violations.
Former press secretary Cynthia Moreno alleged in the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Sacramento County Superior Court, that the speaker targeted her after she filed a sexual harassment complaint against a colleague in May 2024 and stripped her of “significant job responsibilities.”
Early this year, Moreno filed another complaint to the Workplace Conduct Unit, which investigates allegations of inappropriate conduct by legislative employees, alleging Rick Rivas, a nonprofit organization and a political action committee had “funneled money” to exert influence on the speaker, according to the lawsuit.
In response, Moreno alleges in the lawsuit, Rick Rivas used his influence to deny her a tenure-based pay raise and terminate her employment.
Rick Rivas is the American Beverage Assn.’s vice president for California and has acted as a political advisor to his brother. Rick Rivas did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Elizabeth Ashford, a spokesperson for Robert Rivas, said the speaker’s brother had no role in Moreno’s employment and the lawmaker “recused himself from all matters related to Moreno’s termination,” which was handled by the Workplace Conduct Unit.
“The vast conspiracy theories included in this filing are absolutely false,” Ashford said in a statement, adding that “any court will see this for what it is: an attempt by a former employee to force a payout.”
The Assembly Rules Committee terminated Moreno in August after an investigation substantiated allegations of sexual harassment that had been lodged against her, according to Chief Administrative Officer Lia Lopez. Moreno has denied those allegations.
Moreno is seeking damages for lost wages and benefits, lost business opportunities and harm to her professional reputation. She’s also seeking a public apology for the “made-up sexual-harassment allegations launched against [her] for reporting Robert Rivas’ and Rick Rivas’ illegal and unethical actions,” the lawsuit states.
A WOMAN has been charged after two children were killed in a horrific hit-and-run.
Roman Casselden, 16, and nine-year-old Darcie Casselden tragically died after a privately owned e-scooter they were riding on collided with a car in Pitsea, Essex, on February 1.
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Roman Casselden, 16, died after the shocking crashCredit: GoFundMe
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His sister Darcie, 9, also tragically died following the crash
Deimante Ziobryte, 21, appeared at Basildon Magistrates’ Court on Thursday, August 28, charged with failing to stop at the scene of a collision.
Essex Police said Ms Ziobryte remains on bail in connection with other driving offences, with an investigation ongoing into these.
More to follow… For the latest news on this story keep checking back at The Sun Online
Thesun.co.uk is your go-to destination for the best celebrity news, real-life stories, jaw-dropping pictures and must-see video.
INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. — Jim Ross has had a long and fruitful career as a Democratic campaign strategist. Among his victories was electing Gavin Newsom as San Francisco mayor.
Tom Ross has enjoyed similar success on the Republican side. He counts Kevin McCarthy’s election to the Legislature and, later, Congress, among his wins.
The two are brothers who, despite their differences, harbor an abiding love and respect for one another, along with an ironclad resolve that nothing — no campaign, no candidate, no political issue — can or ever will be allowed to drive a wedge between them.
“Tom’s the best person I know. The best person I know,” Jim, 57, said as his brother, 55, sat across from him at a local burrito joint, tearing up. “There’s issues we could go round and round on, which we’re not going to do.”
“Especially,” said Tom, “with someone you care about and love.”
That sort of fraternal bond, transcending partisanship and one of the most heated political fights of this charged moment, shouldn’t be unusual or particularly noteworthy — even for a pair who make their living working for parties locked in furious combat. But in these vexing and highly contentious times it surely is.
Maybe there’s something others can take away.
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The Ross brothers grew up in Incline Village, not far from where Nevada meets California. That was decades ago, before the forested hamlet on Tahoe’s east shore became a playground for the rich and ultra-rich.
The family — Mom, Dad, four boys and a girl — settled there after John Ross retired from a career in the Air Force, which included three combat tours in Vietnam.
John and his wife, Joan, weren’t especially political, though they were active and civic-minded. Joan was involved in the Catholic church. John, who took up a career in real estate, worked on ways to improve the community.
The lessons they taught their children were grounded in duty, discipline and detail. Early on, the kids learned there’s no such thing as a free ride. Jim got his first job at the 76 station, before he could drive. Tom mowed lawns, washed cars and ran a lemonade stand. The least fortunate among the siblings wore a bear suit and waved a sign, trying to shag customers for their dad’s real estate business.
To this day, the brothers disdain anything that smacks of entitlement. “That’s our family,” Jim said. “We’re all workers.”
Like their parents, the two weren’t politically active growing up. They ended up majoring in government and political science — Jim at Saint Mary’s College in the Bay Area, Tom at Gonzaga University in Washington state — as a kind of default. Both had instructors who brought the subject to life.
Jim’s start in the profession came in his junior year when Clint Reilly, then one of California premier campaign strategists, came to speak to his college class. It was the first time Jim realized it was possible to make a living in politics — and Reilly’s snazzy suit suggested it could be a lucrative one.
Jim interned for Reilly and after graduating and knocking about for a time — teaching skiing in Tahoe, working as a sales rep for Banana Boat sunscreen — he tapped an acquaintance from Reilly’s firm to land a job with Frank Jordan’s 1991 campaign for San Francisco mayor.
From there, Jim moved on to a state Assembly race in Wine Country, just as Tom was graduating and looking for work. Using his connections, Jim helped Tom find a job as the driver for a congressional candidate in the area.
At the time, both were Republicans, like their father. Their non-ideological approach to politics also reflected the thinking of Col. Ross. Public service wasn’t about party pieties, Jim said, but rather “finding a solution to a problem.”
Jim, left, and Tom Ross have only directly competed in a campaign once, on a statewide rent control measure. They talk shop but avoid discussing politics.
(William Hale Irwin / For The Times)
Jim’s drift away from the GOP began when he worked for another Republican Assembly candidate whom he remembers, distastefully, as reflexively partisan, homophobic and anti-worker. His changed outlook solidified after several months working on a 1992 Louisiana congressional race. The grinding poverty he saw in the South was shocking, Jim said, and its remedy seemed well beyond the up-by-your-bootstraps nostrums he’d absorbed.
Jim came to see government as a necessary agent for change and improvement, and that made the Democratic Party a more natural home. “There’s not one thing that has bettered human existence that hasn’t had, at its core, our ability to work collectively,” Jim said. “And our ability to work collectively comes down to government.”
Tom looked on placidly, a Latin rhythm capering overhead.
He believes that success, and personal fulfillment, lies in individual achievement. The Republicans he admires include Jack Kemp, the rare member of his party who focused on urban poverty, and the George W. Bush of 2000, who ran for president as a “compassionate conservative” with a strong record of bipartisan accomplishment as Texas governor.
(Tom is no fan of Donald Trump, finding the president’s casual cruelty toward people particularly off-putting.)
He distinctly remembers the moment, at age 22, when he realized he was standing on his own two feet, financially supporting himself and making his way in the world through the power of his own perseverance.
“For me, that’s what Republicans should be,” Tom said. “How do you give people that experience in life? That’s what we should be trying to do.”
It took a physical toll on Jim Ross, Newsom’s campaign manager, who suffered chest pains and, at one point, wound up in the hospital. Was the strain worth it, he wondered. Should he quit?
“The only person I could really call and talk to was Tom,” Jim said. “He understands what it is to work that hard on a campaign. And he wasn’t going to go and leak it to the press, or tell someone who would use it in some way to hurt me.”
That kind of empathy and implicit trust, which runs both ways, far outweighs any political considerations, the two said. Why would they surrender such a deep and meaningful relationship for some short-term tactical gain, or allow a disagreement over personalities or policy to set things asunder?
Jim lives and works out of the East Bay. Tom runs his business from Sacramento. The two faced each other on the campaign battlefield just once, squaring off over a 2018 ballot measure that sought to expand rent control in California. The initiative was rejected.
Though they’ve staked opposing positions on Newsom’s redistricting measure, Proposition 50, Jim has no formal role in the Democratic campaign. Tom is working to defeat it.
The brief airing of their differences was unusual, coming solely at the behest of your friendly columnist. As a rule, the brothers talk business but avoid politics; there’s hardly a need — they already know where each other is coming from. After all, they shared a bedroom growing up.
Jim had a story to tell.
Last spring, as their mother lay dying, the two left the hospital in Reno to shower and get a bit of rest at their father’s place in Incline Village. The phone rang. It was the overnight nurse, calling to let them know their mom had passed away.
“Tom takes the call,” Jim said. “The first thing he says to the nurse is, ‘Are you OK? Is it hard for you to deal with this?’ And that’s how Tom is. Major thing, but he thinks about the other person first.”
He laughed, a loud gale. “I’m not that way.”
Tom had a story to tell.
In 2017, he bought a mountain bike, to celebrate the end of his treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He’d been worn out by six months of chemotherapy and wasn’t anywhere near full strength. Still, he was determined to tackle one of Tahoe’s most scenic rides, which involves a lung-searing, roughly five-mile climb.
Tom walked partway, then got back on his bike and powered uphill through the last 500 or so yards.
Waiting for him up top was Jim, seated alongside two strangers. “That’s my brother,” he proudly pointed out. “He beat cancer.”
Tom’s eyes welled. His chin quavered and his voice cracked. He paused to collect himself.
“Do I want to sacrifice that relationship for some stupid tweet, or some in-the-moment anger?” he asked. “That connection with someone, you want to cut it over that? That’s just stupid. That’s just silly.”
In December 2021, Eric Benjamin Halem was riding high.
Beyond his day job as an LAPD officer, he was juggling several lucrative side hustles, business records and court filings show.
Private security. An app for aspiring actors trying to land auditions. And an exotic car rental company, Drive-LA, that was gaining a following among rappers, influencers and executives.
But Halem’s comfortable life soon began to unravel. He left his full-time position with the LAPD after coming under internal investigation, according to records submitted as part of a lawsuit. Earlier this year, state authorities charged him with insurance fraud.
Then, a few weeks ago, L.A. County prosecutors accused him of masterminding a home invasion robbery with a man with reputed ties to the Israeli underworld — part of what authorities say is a growing trend of criminals targeting victims for their cryptocurrency profits.
How Halem, 37, became embroiled with one of his alleged co-conspirators, Gaby (sometimes spelled “Gabby”) Ben, remains a mystery.
Ben, who has twice been convicted of fraud, was a close business associate of Moshe Matsri, or “Moshe the Religious,” whom authorities describe as an L.A. leader of the Israeli underground who had long operated in the San Fernando Valley and had ties to the Abergil crime syndicate, according to court filings.
In the early morning hours of Dec. 28, 2024, Halem, Ben and Mishael Mann, 20, made their way into an apartment building in Koreatown, LAPD Robbery-Homicide Det. Guillermo De La Riva wrote in a sworn declaration in favor of denying Halem’s bail.
Pierre Louis, 26, had arranged to meet up with the victim for a “digital currency transaction,” which was a ruse to allow the three other men to enter the building and wait for the victim to return, De La Riva wrote.
The men handcuffed the victim and a second person, De La Riva wrote, ordering them at gunpoint to transfer money from a cryptocurrency account and fleeing with $300,000 worth of cryptocurrency, cash and jewelry.
De La Riva said he believed that after Halem’s arrest, other alleged victims might come forward.
When LAPD detectives arrested Halem earlier this month, they obtained search warrants for the $2.1-million home he had recently moved into in Porter Ranch, a scenic neighborhood in the Santa Susana foothills. They also reportedly recovered at least one of his guns from the home of his former police partner.
Halem, who went by Ben professionally, has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping and robbery and remains in Men’s Central Jail after a judge denied his application for bail. His attorney, George G. Mgdesyan, declined to comment, saying he hadn’t yet reviewed the evidence against his client.
Halem has also pleaded not guilty in the state insurance fraud case. Ben, 51, is jailed on a federal immigration hold in Florida.
Louis, Mann and another defendant, Luis Banuelos, have pleaded not guilty to felony charges. Their attorneys declined to comment.
As LAPD detectives investigated the kidnapping and robbery, they took a closer look at Halem’s side businesses, according to two department sources — including whether his startup funding came from organized crime and whether his companies were a front for money laundering. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
In recent years, business was taking off at Drive-LA, which boasted a fleet of rare luxury vehicles for rent, including a 2020 Bentley Continental GT and a Lamborghini Urus, and had nearly 60,000 Instagram followers. With glowing media coverage and venture capitalists opening their checkbooks, Halem planned to open a second location in Phoenix.
He was co-hosting a podcast for car enthusiasts, and former associates told The Times that a reality show based on his life was in the works. On social media, he cultivated the image of a carefree young entrepreneur, with photos of himself posing on the steps of a private jet, at a Formula 1 race and courtside with NBA superstars Dwight Howard and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
Halem launched an app called kaypr in 2017 that matched aspiring actors “to available roles,” allowing them to audition remotely from anywhere in the world. For a security firm where he had a leadership role, he worked “music festivals, celebrity details, and large-scale events.” Among his clients was action film producer Randall Emmett, who has faced fraud claims and allegations of abuse toward women. Emmett has denied the allegations.
In a blog post, Halem described himself as a thrill seeker who has always chased “speed, precision, and a little bit of calculated chaos.”
According to an online biography, Halem grew up in Los Angeles and attended UC Riverside before joining the LAPD. He spent nearly half his 13 years on the force as a training officer and was qualified as a sharpshooter.
His last assignment was at West Valley Division, which patrols areas featured in crimes involving suspects with ties to Israeli organized crime, including the wealthy enclave of Encino. Several former colleagues who spoke with The Times described Halem as a solid if unremarkable officer.
In 2014, Halem was injured during an encounter with a suspect in the West Valley area who had holed up inside an apartment and pelted officers with objects. An LAPD review board found that Halem’s decision to fire a beanbag shotgun at the suspect was in line with department policy.
By the time he left the LAPD in 2022, Halem was pulling in $188,500 in salary and benefits, according to the Transparent California database.
And his other businesses were apparently far more lucrative than his day job. In an interview with Internal Affairs detectives investigating him for insurance fraud, Halem boasted that he was raking in more than $1 million in profit annually from Drive-LA, according to a department source who reviewed the Internal Affairs file and was not authorized to discuss the matter.
Halem was also targeted by numerous lawsuits, one of which cited a WhatsApp conversation in which an LAPD sergeant said that Halem’s “business smells dirty” and suggested that there were other LAPD officers who were “involved in his business dealings.”
“[If] there is any misconduct on their part they will be held accountable,” the sergeant wrote in the WhatsApp exchange, referring to the other officers.
It’s not clear whether the LAPD investigated whether other officers were involved. The department did eventually clear Halem of the insurance fraud allegations. But his alleged misdeeds had come to the attention of the state Department of Insurance, which charged both him and his brother, Jacob Halem, with misrepresenting details in a roughly $200,000 insurance claim related to a Bentley crash in January 2023. The case is pending.
After leaving his full-time LAPD job, Halem worked as an unpaid reserve officer. In March, he was stripped of his police powers after he was charged in the insurance fraud case.
Ben, who moved to the San Fernando Valley from Israel as a young adult, worked in real estate and was a partner at his late mother’s restaurant.
Federal prosecutors described him as a flashy high roller with an affinity for high-end watches. His Israeli mafia connections allowed him to launder money through Jewish-owned businesses across the Valley, prosecutors alleged in documents filed in the case.
Ben was deported after each of his fraud convictions, federal court records show. In one of the cases, prosecutors alleged that he orchestrated a so-called bust-out scheme, recruiting people to open bank accounts on his behalf in exchange for a small fee.
He and his brother, Amin Ben, were also accused of defrauding senior citizens by entering their homes disguised as HVAC repairmen and then photographing their driver’s licenses and bank statements.
Based on wiretaps described in a federal sworn affidavit, federal investigators believed the brothers could move freely in and out of the country, despite their legal troubles, because of Amin Ben’s connection to an official at the Israeli Consulate who was “able to facilitate and issue travel documents.” Prosecutors also alleged that the brothers were captured on a recording threatening to kill the Israel-based family of an LAPD detective investigating one of the federal cases.
The check-cashing business that Ben ran with Matsri, the alleged Israeli crime boss, in an Encino strip mall was a front for alleged fraud schemes, according to a declaration filed in court by an LAPD Major Crimes detective.
Investigators determined that the pair bought more than 230 airline tickets, worth more than $600,000, using phone credit card approval codes and then resold the tickets to local Israelis at discount rates, an FBI agent wrote in a sworn affidavit.
When they arrested Ben and Matsri in October 2010, authorities seized 16 high-end watches and a handgun from Ben’s home.
In 2015, Matsri was sentenced in a separate federal case to 32 years in prison for drug trafficking, money laundering and extortion.
Land records show that Ben was living in a glitzy mansion in the Hollywood Hills, where neighbors said they often saw him driving a black Rolls-Royce. The mansion’s owner sued him after he stopped paying rent for five months, eventually racking up a $150,000 tab, court records show.
Ben continued to live at the residence until moving out in March.
Sheridan Smith and Daniel York Loh play Ann and Charles Ming in I Fought The Law. But filming for the ITV drama was taxing – Daniel was notably reminded of a personal tragedy.
07:00, 23 Aug 2025Updated 07:11, 23 Aug 2025
I Fought The Law looks back on Ann Ming’s fight against the double jeopardy rule(Image: ITV)
Daniel York Loh appears in I Fought The Law – but filming for the series brought some sad memories back to the surface.
Her name was once linked to one of Britain’s most haunting murder cases. Now, Julie Hogg’s tragic story comes to the small screen in I Fought The Law, a four-part drama series written by Grantchester’s Jamie Crichton and based on For The Love Of Julie – a memoir written by Julie’s mother, Ann Ming.
Sheridan Smith portrays Ann, and the series charts her extraordinary fight for justice. “It’s what Ann came up against,” Sheridan, 44, says.
“It was one thing after another. It was relentless. I did nine weeks shooting it and I was a mess. I don’t know the strength it took for Ann to keep fighting. I’m absolutely in awe of her.”
Starring opposite Sheridan as Julie’s father Charles is Daniel York Loh. Charles Ming – “Charlie” in the show – was the steadfast mast to Ann’s boat throughout her battle for justice.
Daniel admits he hadn’t known Julie’s story before signing up. “I didn’t read the book until I got involved in the show,” he says. “As soon as I was asked to do it, I did it. Not many people are aware of it. I wasn’t very aware of it.”
Bringing Charles back to life, 12 years after his death at 88, carried its own weight. “I don’t have kids but I did have a younger brother. I lost him to a heroin overdose and I found his body,” Daniel shares.
The role also struck a deeper chord. “It reminded me of my own father in some ways,” Daniel explains. “You know, naturalised immigrant backgrounds, very British in a lot of ways but regarded as foreign. There’s a sense of displacement in that.”
I Fought The Law is based on Ann Ming’s memoir, For The Love of Julie(Image: ITV)
Julie was 22 years old when she vanished from her Billingham home in November 1989, leaving behind her young son Kevin. Her mother, Ann, immediately knew something was wrong. “I was convinced something had happened to my daughter from day one,” says Ann.
But police believed otherwise. “They thought she could have gone to London to start a new life,” Ann says. “It really was frustrating.” Three months later, Ann’s maternal instincts were tragically vindicated.
She discovered Julie’s body herself, hidden under the bath at Julie’s home. “It gave me strength because I’d been proven right,” Ann now says.
The investigation soon identified a suspect: William “Billy” Dunlop. He stood trial for Julie’s murder twice, but juries failed to convict on both occasions.
Then, while serving a prison sentence for unrelated violent offences, Dunlop confessed to Julie’s killing. But there was a twist: under the centuries-old double jeopardy rule, he couldn’t be tried again for the same crime.
For Ann, giving up wasn’t an option. She petitioned politicians for more than a decade, lobbied the media and refused to let Julie’s case fade from memory.
The series dives into the murder of Julie Hogg, 22, and explores her mother Ann’s fight to bring her killer to justice(Image: ITV)
The cast is rounded out by Luther’s Enzo Cilenti as DS Mark Braithwaite, Doctor Who star Marlowe Chan-Reeves, who plays Ann’s son Gary, Grace actor Jake Davies as Julie’s ex Matthew, Vera actor Jack James Ryan as William Dunlop and Unforgotten’s Andrew Lancel as Guy Whitburn QC.
Ann’s determination inspired the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which introduced new exceptions to the double jeopardy rule in both England, Wales and later Scotland. Ann still calls for other countries to follow suit.
“It’s being debated in Australia,” Ann says. But she doesn’t want the change to stop. “I’d like to meet all world leaders to change this law around the world.”
In 2006, Dunlop finally pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum term of 17 years. Though her battle has ended after more than a decade, Ann’s resentment lingers.
“I feel angry that we were never allowed to meet up with the forensic team,” she says. “Nobody was sacked. One went onto be commander. That wasn’t right. I never got an apology from the police. Nothing at all.”
This relentless fight is the backbone of I Fought The Law. For Sheridan, stepping into Ann’s shoes was a privilege and an emotional burden. “I can only imagine and think if it was my child, but it was emotionally taxing,” she says.
Sheridan fully immersed herself in Ann’s world, devouring documentaries about the case and Ann’s book. “I get mad at myself if I don’t feel the actual pain and trauma. I wanted to make Ann proud and get her story justice,” she says.
Sheridan Smith and Daniel York Loh play Julie Hogg’s parents, Ann and Charles Ming(Image: ITV)
Ann was also present as a consultant on the set while filming took place in North East England. “She was a huge support and very crucial to the production the whole way through,” series director Erik Richter Strand says. “Sheridan is in every scene. She doesn’t get many breaks. We had to make that set safe, practical and comfortable for Sheridan.”
The transformation was physical as well as emotional. Sheridan swapped her brunette style for Ann’s blonde locks. But she dreaded one scene above all: the bathroom scene, where Ann finds Julie’s body. “I knew I had that coming, I wanted to get that scene out, it was a bit scary,” she says. “I knew it’d be torturous.”
Sheridan’s own experience as a mother – she shares her five-year-old son Billy with former partner Jamie Horn – gave the role an added resonance.
“It was my first role as a mum,” she says. “It’s your worst fear, isn’t it? No one should have to go through that. I was emotionally attached to the whole thing.”
“When I did Mrs Biggs, I tried to think of my mum who lost her son, my brother,” she says, referring to her older brother Julian, who died of cancer at the age of 18.
“This time, there was a different layer. Just thinking how I would have felt in that moment, if it was my little one. This was much more powerful, that’s probably why it was a bit difficult.”
Her efforts paid off – Ann couldn’t be happier with her portrayal and the pair have even gone on to form a bond. “We’re friends for life now,” Sheridan says, holding tightly on to Ann’s hand.
SACRAMENTO — A day after his younger brother was denied release, Lyle Menendez also saw California parole officials reject his bid for freedom, ruling he will remain behind bars for now for the 1989 shotgun murders of his parents.
The parole board grilled Menendez, 57, over his efforts to get witnesses to lie during his trials, the lavish shopping sprees he and his brother Erik, 54, took after their parents’ killings, and whether he felt relief after the murders.
“I felt this shameful period of those six months of having to lie to relatives who were grieving,” Menendez told the board. “I felt the need to suffer. That it was no relief.”
As the elder brother, Menendez said he at times felt like the protector of Erik, but that he soon realized the murders were not the right way out of sexual abuse they were allegedly suffering at the hands of their parents.
“I sort of started to feel like I had not rescued my brother,” he said. “I destroyed his life. I’d rescued nobody.”
The closely watched hearing for Lyle Menendez, one of the most well-known inmates currently in the state’s prison system, was thrown into disarray Friday afternoon after audio of his brother’s parole hearing on Thursday was publicly released.
The audio, published by ABC 7, sparked anger and frustration from the brothers’ relatives and their attorney, who accused the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation of leaking the audio and tainting Lyle’s hearing.
A CDCR spokesperson confirmed the audio was “erroneously” issued in response to a records request, but did not elaborate or immediately respond to additional questions from The Times.
“I have protected myself, I have stayed out of this, I have not had a relationship with two human beings because I was afraid, and I came here today and I came here yesterday and I trusted that this would only be released in a transcript,” said Tiffani Lucero-Pastor, a relative of the brothers. “You’ve misled the family.”
Heidi Rummel, Lyle Menendez’s parole attorney, also criticized CDCR, accusing the agency of turning the hearing into a “spectacle.”
“I don’t think you can possibly understand the emotion of what this family is experiencing,” she said. “They have spent so much time trying to protect their privacy and dignity.”
After the audio was published, Rummel said family members who planned to testify decided not to speak after all, and said she would be looking to seal the transcripts of Friday’s hearing.
Parole Commissioner Julie Garland said regulations allowed for audio to be released under the California Public Records Act. Transcripts of parole hearings typically become public within 30 days of a grant or denial, under state law.
During his first-ever appeal to the state parole board, Lyle Menendez was questioned over his credibility.
Garland referred to Menendez’s appeal to get witnesses to lie, plans to escape, and lies to relatives about the killings as a “sophistication of the web of lies and manipulation you demonstrated.”
Menendez said he had no plan at the time, there was just “a lot of flailing in what was happening.”
“Even though you fooled your entire family about you being a murderer, and you recruited all these people to help you … you don’t think that’s being a good liar?” Garland asked.
Menendez said the remorse he felt after the crimes perhaps helped create a “strong belief” he didn’t have anything to do with the killings.
Dmitry Gorin, a former Los Angeles County prosecutor, said the board’s decision denying parole was consistent with past decisions involving violent crimes.
“Although this is a high-profile case, the parole board rejecting the release demonstrates that it seeks to keep violent offenders locked up because they still pose a risk to society,” Gorin said. “Historically, the parole board does not release people convicted of murder, and this case is no different.
He called the decision a win for Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman, who has opposed the brothers’ release.
The brothers were initially sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for the killings of their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez, but after qualifying for resentencing they gained a chance at freedom.
Many family members have supported their cause, but the gruesome crime and the brothers’ conduct behind bars led to pushback against their release.
The killings occurred after the brothers purchased shotguns in San Diego with a false identification and shot their parents in the family living room.
The bloody crime scene was compared by investigators to a gangland execution, where Jose Menendez was shot five times, including once in the back of the head. Evidence showed their mother had crawled, wounded, on the floor before the brothers reloaded and fired a final, fatal blast.
The brothers reported the killings to 911, according to court records. Soon afterward, prosecutors during the trial noted, the two siblings began to spend large sums of money, including buying a Porsche and a restaurant, which was purchased by Lyle. Erik bought a Jeep and hired a private tennis instructor.
Prosecutors argued it was access to their multimillion-dollar inheritance that prompted the killing after Jose Menendez shared that he planned to disinherit the brothers.
But during the trials, the Menendez brothers and relatives testified that the two siblings had undergone years of sexual and physical abuse at the hands of their father.
In contrast to their frenzy around their trial, Thursday and Friday’s parole hearings were quiet — yet occasionally contentious — affairs.
A Times journalist was the only member of the public allowed to view the hearing on a projector screen in a room inside the agency’s headquarters outside of Sacramento.
During the Friday hearing, the parole board quickly dived into the allegations that the brothers were sexually assaulted by their father, which Lyle Menendez said confused and “caused a lot of shame in me.”
“That pretty much characterized my relationship with my father,” he said, adding that the fear of being abused left him in a state of “hyper vigilance,” even after the abuse stopped and his father began to abuse Erik.
“It took me a while to realize that it stopped,” Menendez said. “I think I was still worried about it for a long time.”
Growing up, he said, taking care of his younger brother gave him purpose, and helped to protect him from “drowning in the spiral of my own life.”
Menendez alleged his mother also sexually abused him, but said he did not share it during his comprehensive risk assessment because he “didn’t see it as abuse really.”
“Today, I see it as sexual abuse,” he said. “When I was 13, I felt like I was consenting and my mother was dealing with a lot and I just felt like maybe it wasn’t.”
Board members also questioned Lyle Menendez on why he didn’t mention the possibility they were removed from their parents’ will in their submissions to the board, but Menendez contended their inheritance was not a motive in the killings.
Instead, he said, it became “a problem afterward” as they worried they would have no money after their parents’ deaths.
“I believe there was a will that disinherited us somewhere,” he said.
“How is my dad a threat to society,” Talia Menendez, his stepdaughter, wrote on Instagram shortly after the decision was made. “This has been torture to our family. How much longer???”
In a statement issued Thursday, relatives said they were disappointed by the decision and noted that going through Lyle’s hearing Friday would be “undoubtedly difficult,” although they remained “cautiously optimistic and hopeful.”
Friends, relatives and former cellmates have touted the brothers’ lives behind bars, pointing to programs they’ve spearheaded for inmates, including classes for anger management, meditation, and helping inmates in hospice care.
But members of the board questioned both siblings about their violation of rules, zeroing in at times about repeated use of contraband cellphones.
During the hearing Friday, Lyle said he sometimes used cellphones to keep in touch with family outside the prison. But Deputy Parole Commissioner Patrick Reardon questioned this explanation, and asked why Menendez needed a cellphone if he could make legitimate calls from a prison-issued tablet.
The rule violation, board members pointed out, had resulted in Menendez being barred from family visits for three years.
Reardon pointed out that Menendez pleaded guilty to two cellphone violations in November 2024 and in March 2025. Menendez was also linked to three other violations, although another cellmate of his took responsibility for those violations.
Menendez said the violations occurred when he lived in a dorm with five other inmates, and admitted the use of cellphones was a “gang-like activity.” The group, he said, probably went through at least five cellphones.
Heidi Rummel, Menendez’s parole attorney, argued in her closing that despite the cellphone issues, Menendez had no violent incidents on his prison record.
“This board is going to say you’re dangerous because you used your cellphones,” she said. “But there is zero evidence that he used it for criminality, that he used it for violence. He didn’t even lie about it.”
But members of the board repeatedly focused on what seemed to be issues of credibility. Reardon said at times it felt like Menendez was “two different incarcerated people.”
“You seem to be different things at different times,” Reardon said during the hearing. “I don’t think what I see is that you used a cellphone from time to time. There seems to be a mechanism in place that you always had a cellphone.”
Garland asked Menendez about whether he used his position on the Men’s Advisory Council — a group meant to be a liaison on issues between inmates and prison administrators — to manipulate others and gain unfair benefits.
Menendez said the position gave him access to wall phones, and used the position to help him barter or gain favors.
Garland also pointed to an assessment that found Menendez exhibited antisocial traits, entitlement, deception, manipulation and a resistance to accept consequences.
Menendez said he had discussed those issues, but that he didn’t agree he showed narcissistic traits.
“They’re not the type of people like me self-referring to mental health,” he said, adding that he felt his father displayed narcissistic tendencies and lack of self-reflection. “I just felt like that wasn’t me.”
Menendez pointed to his work to help inmates in prison who are bullied or mocked.
“I would never call myself a model incarcerated person,” he said. “I would say that I’m a good person, that I spent my time helping people. That I’m very open and accepting.”
The parole board applauded Menendez’s work and educational history while in prison, noting he was working on a master’s degree.
Despite the violations, Menendez argued he felt he had done good work in prison.
“My life has been defined by extreme violence,” he said, tears visible on his face. “I wanted to be defined by something else.”
