• Dad of the Year Michael Lohan released a recorded phone conversation to Radar, in which ex-wife Dina Lohan laments trouble child Lindsay. (Is that legal?) "You don't even know what I went through trying to get her into, like, rehab and stuff," Dina says with a flat affect. "[She'd] punch me in the face, threw me out of the car. Like, you don't know the [expletive] I went through trying to get her an intervention by myself. It was very difficult." Michael admits, "I'm being a bit selfish in releasing the tapes." On the other hand, he is being altruistic about making it really easy for his traumatized family to cut him out of their lives and never look back. [Radar]
• 
  
• Rihanna says her new album—you know, the one where she sings about her boyfriend sticking a gun in her mouth?—helped her get over abusive ex Chris Brown. "Making this album was my recovery. It's the way I vented and expressed myself." In case it has not yet become apparent: These songs should never be used for seduction. [ShowBizSpy]
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• Tom Cruise once spent three weeks talking to "books, bottles, and door knobs" as part of a Scientology exercise to "rehabilitate your ability to control things. And to be controlled," explains Scientology expert Marc Headley, whose books, Blown for Good, is begging for a gay Tom Cruise joke, but since the past participle is throwing me off, I'm going to skip it. [National Enquirer]
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• Natalie Portman is embarrassed that everyone's seen her naked. In 1999 she made the Anywhere But Here crew rewrite a scene so she wouldn't have to be naked: "I was figuring out my own sexual identity, likes and dislikes and all that stuff, and it's weird to be doing stuff on film as you're figuring it out." Luckily, she figured it out in time to get naked for Hotel Chevalier, so everyone wins. [ShowBizSpy]
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• Rue McClanahan has been hospitalized, forcing her to cancel what sounds like the trippiest Golden Girls send-up imaginable, a San Francisco gala featuring a Golden Girls theme song sing-along, look alike contest, and "hostess merriment with tranny superstar Heklina." Why does the Bay area insist on being better at everything? [SFist]
• 
  
• Oprah wants Rosie to quit calling her gay. The latter said on Howard Stern's radio show that that Oprah and bestie Gayle King aren't "necessarily doing each other," just that their road trip was "as gay as it gets." But an anonymous source said Oprah "exploded" and was "so furious" she sent a "warning message" to Rosie, because it's one thing if Howard Stern calls you gay, but Rosie is one of them which is far more dangerous, much like the time the kid with duct tape on the bridge of his eyeglasses called me his friend in front of the entire 5th grade class, forever marking me a Loser. [National Enquirer]
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• Frighteningly fit tennis star Andy Roddick and his frighteningly gorgeous wife Brooklyn Decker are shopping for a tasteful riverfront condo in DUMBO. Of course. [P6]
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• Turns out Dancing With the Stars' supermodel du jour, Joanna Krupa, was at the Girls Gone Wild party where Snoop Dogg filmed his very own date-rape-y titty movie, Doggystyle. She performed the heretofore unimagined feat of appearing before a GGW camera and not taking her top off, despite Mr. Dogg's most gentlemanly pleading and the fact that her zip-up denim tube top is on the verge of popping off, anyway.
  [TMZ]

Francis, who has been out on bail pending his trial, agreed yesterday to plead guilty to two counts of submitting false tax returns omitting $562,000 in income and one count of bribery for paying more than $5,000 to his prison guards for contraband food. In exchange, prosecutors will recommend a sentence of time served (he spent 10 months in federal prison awaiting trial in 2007 and 2008), one year of probation, and a $250,000 fine.

The plea came just weeks before the trial was scheduled to begin, and the Associated Press suggests that it was precipitated by credibility issues that recently came to light about the government's star witness, Francis' former accountant Michael Barrett:

Barrett's credibility as a witness came into question in recent weeks, with Otero warning prosecutors that Barrett posed problems for them. The judge noted that Barrett had sought a reward for turning Francis in, even though he may have also committed a crime.

Otero told prosecutors during a hearing earlier this summer that they should consider resolving the case before it went to trial. He had also questioned Francis' ability to control himself in the courtroom during the trial, nearly sending him to jail when he learned that Francis had taunted a prosecutor.

According to TMZ, Francis has sued Barrett, claiming he embezzled millions of dollars and falsely ratted out Francis to the IRS in the hopes of keeping the scheme from being uncovered. That sounds like a conspiratorial revenge fantasy, but the sudden and late plea agreement suggests that prosecutors may have thought Francis was on to something.

Sentencing is due in November. According to the terms of the agreement shown below, it's about as good a bet as you'll find that Francis will be back in prison within days:

Read the whole thing here.

Beating up a Playboy Playmate at a popular Hollywood nightclub, would seem a mountain too high to climb, even for a cretin of Francis' caliber. But this week, he is accused of pulling a bunny out of the proverbial hat in the Loathsome Olympics and doing just that.

The fun started on Friday night when reality tv hero/Paris-posse-clinger Brody Jenner twittered the following:

Joe Francis needs to be in jail!!!...
How can you call yourself a man when you beat up a girl?? Joe Francis is a piece of shit
Joe Francis beat up my lady this morning for no reason! Pulled her to the ground, punched & kicked her..what does that say about him?

In an interview that night with TMZ, Jenner claimed that he and his girlfriend, former Playmate Jayde Nicole, had been watching the Girls Gone Wild kingpin hitting persistently on a woman at Hollywood's Guys and Dolls nightclub. When the pair felt his attentions had gone overboard, Nicole apparently threw a drink in Francis' face. According to Jenner, Francis then "pulled Jayde's hair, punched her in the face and threw her to the ground and began kicking her."

Francis disputed the account in an interview with MTV News saying, "I would never hit a girl in my life." He continued:

This was an unprovoked attack," Francis said. "The security-camera footage pretty much confirms my account of the events entirely. ... I was talking with a friend of mine. I got punched in the back and then all of a sudden, [Jayde] poured a drink, and then a glass hits me in the head. I turned around. I reached over. I see it's a girl, the head of the girl. I wanted to turn her head around. I grabbed her hair, and the next thing I know, my shirt's being ripped. I'm punched in the face. I go into the submissive ball until the whole thing gets settled down."

Today, Nicole has fired, issuing a statement basically saying, you did too beat me up. Her spokesman - and yes, all Playmates do have spokesmen - reiterated, "On Friday August 28 at approximately 1:20 A.M., Jayde Nicole was the victim of a violent assault when she was attacked from behind, thrown down to the ground by her hair, and beaten in the face and body in front of multiple witnesses by a person identified as Joe Francis."

Nicole is refraining from further comment as she claims to be cooperating with the police investigation of the incident.

Here's the AP report—and really, every short paragraph is outrageously satisfying:

"Girls Gone Wild" founder Joe Francis was arrested in Los Angeles after he showed up five hours late for a court hearing in his tax evasion case.

When the adult-video entrepreneur finally appeared in court Monday afternoon, he told the judge he was suffering from the flu. Francis' attorney Melissa Weinberger says U.S. marshals then handcuffed Francis and took him away.

Francis is accused of claiming more than $20 million in bogus business expenses on his corporate tax returns, including $3.8 million for a home in Mexico and $10.4 million in phony consulting services. He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of federal tax evasion.

The hearing was to consider a request from his tax attorneys to recuse themselves.

It looks as though that massive conspiracy cooked up cruel activist judges and breast-suppressing Illuminati finally paid dividends! Though Sundance buddy Kim Zolciak is surely donning her black wig on this dark day, we have a feeling that Samantha Ronson is nothing but smiles. Meet you at Bardot, Sam—drinks (and plastic water bottles) are on us!

• 'Girls Gone Wild' founder arrested in LA court [AP]

The first entry, entitled Christie Hefner on the Difference Between Playboy and Porn, Hefner doesn't talk so much about why Playboy isn't porn, but about how it is a lifestyle. She says:

I think what Playboy aspired to from the beginning was to represent the good life, and part of that was the attraction between men and women and the romantic part of life.

See, while it's true that mutual attraction is important, there isn't a lot of mutuality about wanking to pictures of naked women that will likely never sleep with you.

Hefner also talks about why it's important to make sure your branding is coming across the way you want it to.

So I think the lesson is to actually understand what you believe your brand mission is and then to be true to that in terms of how the consumers see it. And that's a combination of your own standards and some regular research into whether the consumers are perceiving your brand the way you want them to.

Do you think Hefner's looked into what the Playboy brand is selling folks these days? I don't know how "sexy" union suits connote the good life, but then, perhaps I'm jaded.

In Christie Hefner on Playboy's Next Online Play, she talks about re-launching Playboy's online presence based on all these new and exciting things like social networking, widgets, personalization and video content. She says "I think the days of the walled garden approach are in the past." Actually, they were in the past a couple of years ago, but it did kind of made us pity her tech people, who have likely been pushing for these changes for years.

It was, however, in the segment Christie Hefner on Management vs. Leadership when she talks about her father, that we became just a little concerned about how far removed from reality Hefner might be:

I think more than anything else he has been instrumental in developing just a sense of perspective and balance. So, as hard-driving as he is — and I think that there are no entrepreneurs that are successful who are not hard-driving — and I think he would admit he gave up basically having and raising a family to make Playboy the success that it is. At the same time, I think he has the right kind of perspective on life as to what the truly important things are, and that's probably the best lesson that you can give, particularly to your children.

Umm, let me get this straight. Christie Hefner has been running the company for 20 years while her father slept with countless women on her payroll who are much younger than her (something he undoubtedly did instead of raising her, his daughter, when she was a youngster), reportedly kicking his 18-year-old son out of the house so he didn't have to share his female roommates, and doing goodness knows what about the other 2 children he has with his wife (they're not divorced) who he separated from in 1999, but he knows what's important in life and communicates that to his kids? Good to know someone out there has some perspective.

Christie Hefner On The Difference Between Playboy And Porn [Big Think]
Christie Hefner On Playboy's Next Online Play [Big Think]
Christie Hefner On Management vs. Leadership [Big Think]

Related: Naked Ambition [Radar]

Earlier: The Playboy Store: An Assault On Good Taste

The complaint even introduces his case by saying his injustice is the same kind of tale that "Nina Simone sang about; William Faulkner wrote about it; historians teach about it."

...Francis got in trouble when his film crew taped 17-year-old women in Panama City in 2003. He claims they entrapped him by pretending to be 18 or older.

He was sued by the parents in Florida and wound up in Judge Richard Smoak's courtroom. Francis says that Smoak was a "long time friend and decade-long former law partner" of Ross McCloy, whose firm represented not only the parents, but previously the Panama City government in a civil suit brought by Francis.

The complaint can hardly contain Francis' disgust at this development: "Imagine if a person in a dispute with a businessman chose their long-time personal friend and business associate to 'independently judge' the dispute with the businessman. Such a claim wouldn't work in a 3rd grade classroom..."

Although, if it would, could someone please let Francis know? He's heard those 3rd-grade girls are hella easy! In all seriousness, what Nina Simone songs or Faulkner quotations could possibly measure up to this injustice? Can there be anything in the arts that could hope to hold a candle to the saga of an oppressed, well-hung porn king sentenced to prison and poop-scooping?

• Joe Francis Complaint Alleges Panama City Judge and Former Law Partners Gone Wild [THR, Esq.]

Not to mention the lawyers along the way happy to take 40 percent, knowing all along that at best a confidential deal would be struck so that Francis could get on with the business of spooning out the dozens of hours of Dupré footage to horny Web gossips. But then maybe waiting to settle was the smart economic move — the GGW site no longer features Dupré as a come-on, and if I were Francis I'd sign whatever it took to restore my sagging search rank.

But she lied about her age and pretended to be in the proper frame of mind to give consent, so maybe Team Francis scores some points in Dupre's $10 million suit against Girls Gone Wild for releasing the video under her name and without permission, and under false pretenses. I'm not sure. In fact, a supercomputer somewhere is probably furiously trying to calculate how the moral high ground is altered by this tipsy future hooker's videotaped and misleading consent, given five years ago, to be in a cheap, flash-your-tits DVD produced by a guy who would later go to jail in connection with a case against him for allegedly making racy videos of underaged girls.

In the meantime, enjoy the brief video below, in which Jersey girl Dupre takes on a southern accent picked up in North Carolina, where she went to high school, and uses the assumed name Amber Arpaio to declare she is ready to Go Wild.

By the way, Girls Gone Wild appears to have retained public relations firm 5WPR to disseminate this video. The firm excluded tips@gawker.com from its distribution list. We're kind of hurt. Was it something we said? Everything we said? Awesome! Anyway, pro tip: This is not how you spell "permission," although we're guessing Joe Francis did not catch the slip:

HERE IT IS- ASHLEY/ KRISTEN IN HER OWN WORDS-GIVING PERMISSON TO BE VIDEO-TAPED BY GGW

Dupré's lawsuit claims Francis promoted the new videos by saying she was "doing a lot of hot lesbian acts," which she says is false. The suit also accuses Francis of trying to get the public to believe Dupré "is performing sexual acts'' in the videos. Not true again, she says...

"Defendants created the false impression that [Dupré] has endorsed and/or approves of the graphic, sexual content, including lesbian acts, contained in the video, which in reality she does not," the suit says.

Dupre is also not happy that Francis registered ashleydupre.net. She is also arguing that, when she encountered Francis at 17, she was both too young and too drunk to consent to the video. Obviously! Within a few short years she was already making much wiser and healthier decisions about how to live her life.

[Miami Herald, People]

Dupré's R&B track has netted her six figures so far. But imagine how many $29.95 signups Francis will see from the video excerpted above — not to mention continued monthly billings to lazy horndogs who forget to cancel their accounts. Guess who else won't be cashing in? Hustler, Vivid, Skinemax or any other old-media video distributor. In less than 48 hours, any footage he posts will be on file sharing networks for free. That's why Francis knows he has to move this product fast.

A lesson to young women: Protect your long tails. Don't sign on the dotted line without a lawyer or agent present, and make sure you hold onto the source footage. It might just be worth something, and Valleywag would rather see you cash in than Francis any day.

(Still and clip from Girls Gone Wild)

• Georgi Vodka, the blogger Vodka of choice, is willing to pay in the low six figures for her to be their next "butt girl." Low six figures might be all right for a regular call girl, but we're talking about a high-class call girl here, one who could inspire her very own scotch ad campaign.
  
• Hustler is also offering her $1 million for a shoot. Hopefully Eliot Spitzer can take solace in her career and our first blind and philandering governor. Larry Flynt would demand that she go fully nude for the shoot, of course. But don't worry about payment! "By most accounts," says Silicon Alley Insider, "Larry is a trustworthy pornographer."
  
• Girls Gone Wild wants to give her $1 million to do a photo spread and go on tour. But they may rescind that offer (which didn't even involve any going wild, according to reformed good guy Joe Francis) now that they've realized that they have "'a week's worth" of video of Ashley celebrating her 18th birthday, which she did on the big bus," according to TMZ.

When he learned of the new charges, Joe Francis waived his right to a bond hearing for the contempt of court charge that had led to his being jailed. Francis cried as his mother blew him a kiss while he was led from a federal court room back to his cell.

"I didn't do anything," he told his parents as he was led away, The News Herald of Panama City reported.

Francis, 34, was charged with bribing a public servant, three counts of possessing a controlled substance and five counts of introducing contraband cash and drugs into a detention facility. The charges are third-degree felonies punishable by up to five years in prison.

For those keeping score, 16 pills were confiscated, including lorazepam for anxiety and Lunesta, ensuring that no giant, glow-in-the-dark butterflies are going to sail through Francis's barred window, landing gently on his uncomfortable jail-issue pillow to relieve him from his sleepless nights in lockdown. All the kingpin's men are falling, too: Francis's business partner Scott Barbour was charged with having supplied him with the contraband items, and is scheduled for his first court appearance on Friday—though none of their troubles have yet been updated on the "Legal Fuckage" section of their full-service Mantra Films corporate website.

• New Charges for Girls Gone Wild Founder [ABCNews/AP]

Numbers that set off a red flag for the IRS: round numbers, dollar amounts without decimals... and deductions consisting of the same number repeated over and over again.

Like Francis' false insurance claim for $333,333.33.

He also claimed $500,000.00, and $1,666,666,67 deductions. Ask any accountant. Those are damn stupid numbers.

Look at a receipt in your wallet. Did that coffee cost $1.11? Or $1.00? It was probably more like $1.28.

The same goes for your deductions. Let's face it, most of us don't keep every receipt, but when you're slightly fudging a number from memory, at least make it look right. — BEN POPKEN

Federal Tax Rap for "Girls Gone Wild" Boss [The Smoking Gun]

Joe Francis, the "Girls Gone Wild" founder, was indicted today on federal tax evasion charges for illegally deducting more than $20 million in phony business expenses from his 2002 and 2003 corporate tax returns. According to a two count indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Reno, Nevada, Francis, 34, sought to conceal income through the use of offshore companies and nominees.

At one point, he transferred $15 million from one offshore bank account to a California brokerage account in the name of a Cayman Islands corporation he controlled...If convicted of the federal charges, he faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and fines of up to $500,000.

The Feds couldn't be more proud of their catch, having issued a press release today touting the indictment that features the kind of overenthused P.R. phrasing usually reserved for announcements of the "C-Level Actress Loves Slipping Into the Crappy Clothing She Bought At Our Store!"-variety. To their credit, however, this is the kind of haul that only comes when various branches of law enforcement and government work in seamless harmony in pursuit of their man, though a special tip of the hat is due to the lone IRS employee who first noticed the red flag on Francis's tax return of a $5 million deduction for a subscription to Fully Clothed, Teetotaling Honor Students Quarterly Review, a periodical which turned up in none of their databases.

• Federal Tax Rap for "Girls Gone Wild" Boss [TSG]

• MSNBC cancels their Imus-cast. May we tackily say: Told ya! [TV Newser]
  
• Girls Gone Wild impresario Joe Francis has been charged with tax evasion. [LAT]
  
• Speaking of tax evasion, Marc Anthony (aka Mr. Jennifer Lopez) owes $2.5 million in back taxes to New York State and City. Must have been an oversight. [TMZ]
  
• If your apartment building is falling down, New York City might make the repairs on its own and bill your landlord. Sounds like a recipe for disaster. [Empire Zone]
  
• New Times Square "entertainment venue/restaurant/lounge" is looking for professional bloggers to create buzz about them. Sounds shill-tastic. [Eater]
  
• Where is Vincent Gallo? Anyway, it's his birthday! Yay!