The two broke up. Then Martinez allegedly emailed Mullens over and over and over, moaning about his lost love and his bad mental state, and promising to stop contacting her (which she told him to do). But it just kept on, and got worse:

Soon Mullens started receiving emails from a mysterious (fake) "Hugh Frederick":

Martinez eventually acknowledged that he was Hugh Frederick. But his unwanted emails to Mullen got even more disturbing:

Here's a PDF of the entire complaint. If it's at all accurate, Martinez should probably 1. Stop that, and 2. Seek help.

[THR]

...when the date of the issue drew near, a draft press release was circulated with Mullens' name on it and Martinez later discovered that Mullens had "concealed her presence from Plaintiff during a conference discussing the section." ...Martinez... now says Mullens caused him irreparable harm by "having his professional reputation damaged, by his constructive discharge from The Los Angeles Times, and by the emotional distress and suffering that has resulted."

Martinez can't pin everything on the flack, however, since he should have known from the start that pimping a client of his girlfriend was going to get him in trouble, no matter how hard (and futilely) he tried to ethically cleanse the situation by bringing in other editors and making the girlfriend promise not to work on this one particular project. In other words, he was asking for it.

Mullens' attorneys, meanwhile, claim Martinez's suit is retaliation for a restraining order filed for "unstable behavior, threats, and harassment." In other words, they're not denying anything, just changing the subject. Total flack behavior, right there.

[Hollywood Reporter]

(Image via New York Social Diary)

Well, more like actually new—the staff had to more or less start over when all the pieces selected by guest-editor Brian Grazer were pulled in the midst of a COI scandal. The LAT's opinion page editor, Andres Martinez, resigned Thursday when the section was killed, and the remaining staff had to pull together a replacement under the direction of op-ed editor Nicholas Goldberg and deputy Current editor Gary Spiecker. With a Friday night press deadline, the Current staff had two days to do something that usually takes over a week.

We caught up with Goldberg over e-mail yesterday and asked him how they did it.

The bottom line is that the situation was not as bad as it sounded. "Some of [what is in today's issue] is stuff that was going in the section anyway (Grazer was only going to fill about two-thirds of the section), some of it was already in hand for next week, and some of it had been planned for the daily op ed page."

How did he feel about it, now that it was done?

"I think the final product is just fine. It was lucky for us that this happened in a week when we had a lot of extra pieces on hand. Sometimes the cupboard is bare, but this week we happened to have what we needed to put a section together much more quickly than usual."

Goldberg told Gawker that no final decision has been made about what will happen to the articles that Brian Grazer commissioned as guest-editor. According to a letter from the LAT's publisher, that pile is heavy with manuscripts by "Paul Ekman on lie detection; Andr Leon Talley on fashion and status; Eric Kandel on the brain and psychotherapy; Dalton Conley on political polling and bias; Shepard Fairy with a special illustration; Marty Singer on the increasingly brazen tabloids and paparazzi; and Sam Hall Kaplan on L.A."

Will we ever get to see this article on L.A.!? Grazer hopes so. "We came up with a collection of essays and art that I think readers would have found genuinely stimulating," Grazer said in a statement Thursday. "My hope now is that we can find another way to present the results of our efforts to the audience it deserves."

In his e-mail yesterday, Goldberg said the editors are going to "sit down and talk about that next week." This is sort of like If I Did It! —LEON

Current [LAT]

In a phone interview yesterday, Mayer said that he was out of town the day the press release about Grazer guest-editing the section was issued, and Mullens, who is second-in-command at the firm, stepped in to make sure the release made its way to reporters.

Martinez, who was the editor of the LAT's opinion page until he resigned yesterday amid accusations of conflict of interest, has asserted on the paper's opinion blog that his girlfriend played no part in his decision to tap Grazer as guest-editor of the section. (Whoever is now running the LAT opinion blog has since referred to Martinez's posts as a "daffy duck routine.")

Mayer confirmed yesterday that Mullens was not involved in the arrangement, saying that he was the one who first floated the idea of getting Grazer to Martinez back in December. Mayer said that Grazer was not one of his clients at the timne, though the two did start working together in a professional capacity in February. Mayer added that he still does not count Grazer as a full-time client, but he does advise his production company, Imagine Entertainment, on matters of "strategic communications."

For that reason, Grazer asked Mayer for his input when the L.A. Times drafted a press release to promote this week's issue of "Current." (The issue was axed by publisher David Hiller in the wake of the scandal and redone by the opinion staff after Martinez's departure.)

"The L.A. Times drafted the press release, sent it to me; I had some comments, they made a few changes," Mayer told Gawker. "[Kelly Mullens] was not even involved in that part of it. But the day the release was put out, I happened to be traveling. I had to go to New York. So, Kelly, who is my number two, helped out a little in servicing the wire services and making sure that they were getting a copy of the release. Because I wasn't available to help them get it to some reporters, Kelly made a call to the AP to make sure they got it." —LEON

EARLIER: LAT Editor Fires Back at Martinez in Memo

The full memo, subject line "What's really important," after the jump. Skip down past the two feel-good paragraphs up top to get to the good stuff, and check back tomorrow for more from Gawker Weekend. —LEON

From: O'Shea, James Sent: Friday, March 23, 2007 5:32 PM To: yyeditall Subject: What's really important

To the Staff:

Sometimes it is hard to remember what we are really about when controversy swirls around the newsroom. Then news breaks such as the Associated Press naming Bill Plaschke the nation's best sports columnist in large newspapers, reminding us of what is truly important — quality journalism for our readers. Bill's honor and many other awards announced in recent weeks reminds me of what an excellent newspaper this staff puts out every day, from Baghdad to Los Angeles, from Washington to Sacramento. You all should be so proud of yourselves and your paper. We can't get distracted by noise from those on the sidelines.

Since the start of the year, we' won so many awards that I really can't list them all. Consider this: The Times Sports department won the Triple Crown for placing among the Top 10 newspapers in the nation for best Sunday, daily and special sports sections. Ken Weiss and Usha Lee McFarling not only won the George Polk Award for the Altered Oceans series, they, along with Rick Loomis, also won numerous other awards, including National Journalism awards sponsored by Scripps Howard and the Walter Sullivan Award for Excellence in Science Journalism. Charles Ornstein, Tracy Webber and Alan Zarembo are Investigative Reporting finalists in the Scripps Howard national competition for their work on organ transplants. Charles and Tracy are finalists for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, too. Steve Lopez is a finalist for the prestigous Batten Medal awarded by the American Society of Newspaper Editors. We placed first or second in eight catagories of the AP News Executives Council awards and in seven catagories in that organization's photo and graphics competition. David Zuccino is a finalist for the Ernie Pyle Award. Judy Pasterenak won the James Aronson Award for Social Justice for her "Blighted Homeland" series. The Photo staff won so many awards in the Picture of the Year International Competition that it would be impractical to list them all. The same is true for the Best of Phorojournalism awards from the National Press Photographers Association. In all, the photo staff had 10 winners. In the Society for News Design competitiion, the Times placed first in total awards with 107, edging out the New York Times. The LA Times total is the highest in the history of the awards. And it's only March.

I also want to correct some misinformation being published on blogs by Andres Martinez. I don't want to engage in mud-slinging with Andres. He is a good journalist and I feel bad for him, worse today, in fact, than yesterday. But I'm also not going to sit here like some silent lamb while he distorts my record and attacks this newspaper and my newsroom.

I am not in charge of the editorial board of this newspaper. The editor of the editorial page reports directly and independently to Publisher David Hiller. That is as it should be. I strongly believe in the principle that separate editors should be in charge of news and opinion. To suggest that I told David Hiller I didn't want the editorial board reporting to me on a "whim" is untrue. He is referring to part of a longer conversation with Nikki Finke, and to take my remarks out of context is unprofessional and sloppy. Moreover, no one in this newsroom is on a campaign to "storm the editorial page and bring it back into lockstep with the newsroom." It is true that we have journalists in the newsroom who don't agree with Andres' views on the ethical problems that led to his resignation. I count myself among them. But these are legitimate, genuine differences of opinion held by people with a passion for the news and this newspaper. To suggest otherwise is pitiful. He also attacked Sue Horton and Julie Marquis for having the audacity to alert the editorial pages to the important work of the staff in case it might make a good editorial. Sun and Julie did nothing wrong.

Lastly, Andres suggests I came to Los Angeles as some sort of agent of Tribune Company to quell an "uprising by the imperial subjects." To refer to the journalists at this newspaper in such a manner in an insult to hard-working people who happen to disagree with Andres. I came here because it was an honor to be selected to lead a great newspaper with an excellent staff in one of the most interesting cities in the world. I will stand on my record and credentials as a newsman and journalist. The suggestion that I make decisions simply to curry favor with the staff is also simply untrue. We face hard times. If I have to make decisions that are unpopular with the staff but in the best long-term interest of this newspaper, I will not hesitate to do make them. That is what leadership is about. I've said that openly from the day that I walked into this newsroom.
I believe in full disclosure.

Jim