Their source ("a Madoff acquaintance"), says the money manager — accused of making $50 billion vanish in a Ponzi scheme — may claim that "somewhere along the line, he had a mental break,” or "he has a multiple personality disorder.” A psychiatrist hypothesizes that a Bad Bernie-Good Bernie defense could involve claims that Madoff committed his frauds in periods of euphoria but couldn't figure out ways to fix them when he came back to his senses.

The biggest problem with this defense? The sheer length of time Madoff kept his scheme running. A rival trader, Harry Markopolos, alerted the SEC as early as 2000 that Madoff appeared to be running a Ponzi scheme.

And a writer for Barron's, Erin E. Arvedlund, wrote a skeptical article about Madoff's purported investment returns in May 2001. She even got Madoff on record to explain his too-good-to-be-true hedge fund performance: "It's a proprietary strategy, I can't go into detail."

By their nature, Ponzi schemes — which use new investors to pay off older ones — are short lived because money eventually runs out. The pyramid scheme that Charles Ponzi ran in 1920 lasted just nine months. That Madoff was able to keep his running for nearly a decade — or longer — suggests that he was anything but crazy.

The users want Facebook and its partners to delete all stored information, the return of any "ill-gotten gains" — of which we understand there to be none — and for the court to "award restitution." If the plaintiffs win the case it'll at least be interesting to see how much our justice system values a good Christmas surprise in monetary terms. Meanwhile, the technology behind Facebook Beacon is back, but now its called Facebook Connect and now its entirely opt-in.

Dear Judge Gottschall,

Plaintiff has a copyright on a digital photo he sent to me. The use of this photo falls under fair use. The version of Plaintiff’s photo on my website is an 80 percent reduction from Plaintiff’s original photo. Plaintiff’s digital photo is not a product one would generally offer for sale, or expect to be purchased. Plaintiff asserts that publishing his email constitutes the public disclosure of private facts. There are no personally identifiable facts or information in his communication. Plaintiff does not use his actual name, or provide any contact. Plaintiff’s statements in his email to me cannot be traced back to an actual individual by the public. On Craigslist, Plaintiff and I were required to accept the terms of use which state in section 3, “that by using the Service, you may be exposed to Content that is offensive, indecent, inaccurate, misleading, or otherwise objectionable.”

I didn’t believe anyone would fall for such an obviously fake ad. When I received those 175 responses to my Craigslist ad, I was blown away. I showed responses to friends. When I suggested posting the responses, none of us saw any issue in doing so.That there was so much coverage truly confused me. There was no malicious intent in my actions. It was curiosity. This is a case of a person trying to get his pound of flesh out of me for my perceived wrongs. I am frequently rude, unsympathetic, unempathetic, and politically incorrect, but there’s no law against that.

Yes, by now we've all heard and seen that Kirstie Alley "would be dead" without Scientology. We're not here to cast aspersions in her general direction because, hey, whatever floats her boat is fine by us, ya know? But with billable hours being the way they are these days, we're wondering if it was a good use of her legal eagles' (apparently unlimited) time to crank out a toothless missive for what amounted to be a throwaway one-sentence joke buried on page 87 of a glossy mag. We're going with a strongly-worded yet equally toothless response of "Not so much!"

Former Take-Two CEO Ryan Brant was sentenced to five years of probation for his role in stock-option backdating, after agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors, Bloomberg reports.

Brant's February plea also required him to pay $6.3 million to settle a civil suit filed by federal regulators another $1 million to New York city and state officials. He's already forked over $4.7 million of that. More than 200 companies are under similar investigations, but Brant, 35, became the first CEO convicted in the cases.

``I'm deeply sorry for my role as an executive in the company and my role in the options dating process,'' Brant told New York State Supreme Court Justice Brenda Soloff today in Manhattan. Brant had faced up to four years in prison.

Brant was one of three Take-Two officials convicted in the case.

Take-Two Ex-Chief Sentenced to 5 Years of Probation (Update3) [Bloomberg]

By: Brian Crecente

The first episode almost didn't happen.

A two mile hike up the steep hills of the scrub and rock strewn wilds of Topanga State Park in 108 degree weather exhausted the female star, and the male star, burdened down with 60 pounds of faux plate and chain mail during the hike, was about to pass out.

"It was a nightmare," says the film's producer Dez. "They were both almost passing out, we didn't bring enough water and the only shade was next to these little boulders."

But the two stars mustered enough strength to film 35 minutes of sword fight before having nearly as much sex.

Geek porn may have not been born out there under that sweltering August sun, but it was most certainly conceived there.

And Dez was around to capture it on video: Two porn stars, one dressed as a thief, the other as a fighter, acting out one of dungeons and dragons longest running jokes: Rogues do it from behind.

Speaking to me earlier this month, Dez laughs at the title of the Premiere Whorecraft episode.

"Yeah, I know," he says, when I point out that the title shares a name with a pretty popular t-shirt slogan. "I had to do it."

Since filming that first episode last year, Dez has produced five more episode of Whorecraft, a send up to massively multiplayer online gaming that seem to share, at times, distinct similarities to World of Warcraft.

Dez, an enthusiastic gamer and self-admitted World of Warcraft addict, says he'd been playing around with the idea of creating a series of movies based on fantasy massively multiplayer games for a couple of years.

"I've been playing D and D and have been a huge gamer all of my life, since back in the days of Golden Axe, and I just felt it was time for something new," he said.

On Plot, Acting and Bears
Dez started in the porn business as an agent, then segued into making the films (he's performed in more than 600 movies) before finally shifting to directing. After putting out 60 movies, he decided it was time to persue his concept piece.

"People have made medieval porn and stuff, but no one has ever done the more creative aspects of fantasy gaming, like elves and knights," he said.

And Dez was sure there would be a market for it.

"People play these games and see these sexy elves, but they don't ever get to see the elves have sex," he said. "A lot of people try to roleplay in the game, but I decided to bring it out into the real world and do it right."

The six episodes, which range from 19 to 30 minutes long each, have logged a total of 20,000 purchases and about five times as many bit torrents, something Dez says he can't profit from or control.

Since filming that first short episode in the state park, Dez has concentrated on making his movies more plot driven and episodic in nature. He's even taken to having women from previous episodes appear for a short talking role as actresses only. Something nearly unheard of in the porn industry.

"All of the episodes link with each other, so we have reoccurring characters and that's really hard to do in the porn industry, it has such a fast burn-out rate," he said. "And very few actresses are actresses in our industry. They are not used to role-playing or acting they are used to going to the porn set and doing there thing then leaving."

Dez's movies also take much longer to film because they have so many non-sex scenes.

"With most porn it's like in one day you shoot five scenes and then you're done," he said. "These episodes take two weeks to film and then another week in post production."

And while the films are still most certainly hardcore porn, they do include some nice touches, like weapons and armor crafted just for the films, choreographed fight scenes, and in one of the episodes, a bear.

"That was two days of shooting, just to get the bear comfortable around everybody and it was a nightmare to do," Dez said, laughing. "The guy we rented the bear from, he did the tigers in the movie Gladiator. He's the body double for Russell Crowe, he's actually in episode four."

And it won't stop with bears, upcoming episodes will feature blue screen work with a dragon, perhaps, or maybe real tigers.

"The skies the limit for this stuff," he said. "Initially it was just for gamers, but I think we're attracting more and more people not into games now."

The Porn WoW Guild
While Mia Rose, an up and coming porn starlet who appeared in the second and third episodes of Whorecraft, has been too busy to do any recent episodes, Dez says she will be making a return.

In the meantime, another rising star, british porn actress Hannah Harper, is teaming up with Dez to star in his next movie and, perhaps, help him write it.

"I've always enjoyed that part of the industry," Harper said. "I've always liked working on the scripts, dressing up, setting up the fantasy. I did theater back in college in England."

While Harper hadn't played World of Warcraft before agreeing to work with Dez, she has since become a full-blown addict.

"The last video game I played with was Mario Brothers when I was nine," she said. "But my boyfriend and Dez have been playing World of Warcraft for about two years. I could never stand the appeal."

Harper decided to check the game out when the Burning Crusade expansion pack was released.

"I started playing when Burning Crusade came out and I got completely hooked," she said. "I played 15 hours straight, it was all weekend."

And like many hardcore gamers, she can't really explain her obsession.

"Friends of mine have asked me what do you do, what is so great about the game. I don't know. But I dream about it now."

Harper says she plays with her boyfriend, Dez and a few other porn stars. She plays a Blood Elf Priest "because they stand back a bit in combat."

When she started the game, every time someone attacked her she would panic and die. Now she knows to stick close to her guildmates, who are all close to level 70.

Harper points out that despite her late start in the game she's built up her character to level 26... one bar from 27.

"Initially I was doing the movie out of friendship to Dez, but as soon as I started playing the game I was like 'Oh my god, I have to do this,'" she said. "I can't sleep at night because I think about all of the things that could transfer so easily from the game to the movie."

From RPG to FPS
Dez insists that Whorecraft is a product of love, not money. He is a huge fan of the game and this is his way of showing that.

I've talked to my share of people pretending to be gamers, and Dez didn't strike me as one of those.

It's telling that when Dez received a cease and desist letter from Vivendi he seemed more worried about the possibility of losing his four high level characters than he was about any possible suit.

"I'm sure it's fair use, but I don't want to rock any boats," he said. "It's no biggie so I changed the name of the movies... I don't want to lose my characters, I've got two probably worth $5,000."

Now that Whorecraft's popularity seems to be taking off, Dez is exploring other games ripe for porn renditions.

His next geek porn project, he says, will be a a first-person shooter film that is "kind of counter-strikish."

"We're going to have demolitions experts on hand, guns firing blank rounds, I even have a member of the LA SWAT Team who's going to help," he said. We are really going to do it. It's going to be hot."

"I'm having more fun doing this than the straight up gonzo porn," he said. "I could have made some website, put some swords on it and then had some chicks blowing people and it would have done great. But that's not why I'm doing this. I'm doing this because it's cool and people dig it."

Pirro's bead-making enterprise —"JP Styles Inc.," not to be confused with the "korean-American hairstylist, nail tech, tattoo artist, model, musician, and artist" of the eponymous URL — was the kind of thing engaged in by society dames who misconstrue friends' and employees' indulgent purchasing of her handmade crap as a viable business model. The hobby's pathos isn't the issue, however. JP Styles was incorporated in 2002 with help from Pirro's husband's law firm; Mr. Pirro received "miscellaneous" income from the arrangement, though his law license was suspended at the time due to his conviction for tax fraud. The "profits" from this enterprise (there were none, as Jeanine "lost between $10,000 and $20,000") were supposed to benefit My Sisters' Place, a shelter for victims of domestic violence. Pirro must have felt bad about the lack of bead money, as her campaign fund donated $1,475 to MSP in 2003.

No examples of Pirro's beadwork exist online, but please send us pics if you got one of her "pieces." Note that there's a certain risk in exposing your ownership of these hot items, as subpoenas have already gone out to "Pirro acquaintances who bought the jewelry, including at least two Westchester judges." Those people are just the victims, though it's high time people started going to jail for hawking their home-hobby garbage at the office. Unless you'd care to take a look at the these awesome pashminas we made last weekend?

Pirro's jewel of denial in fed biz probe [NYDN via NYM]

A New Naomi? [WWD]

[Photo: Getty]

Mogul files lawsuit over a Picasso [AP]

Earlier: Max Bernstein: No Leak I

Most charges against Girls Gone Wild producer dropped [AP via ohnotheydidnt]

[Photo: Getty]

Ex-Gossip Editor Convicted on Sex Charge [AP]
Former Las Vegas Reporter — and Magazine Gossip Writer — Convicted on Sex With Minors Charge [E&P]
Former Us Weekly Staffer Timothy McDarrah Convicted for Trying to Get 13-Year-Old's 'Hot Stuff' [Jossip]

Earlier: Dirty 'US Weekly' Reporter Found Guilty of Liking Little Girls a Little Too Much

A prosecutor told the South Jakarta District Court that Erwin Arnada oversaw photo shoots and published revealing pictures of female models in underwear, some showing partially exposed breasts.

"The models also had inviting expressions on their faces," said Resni Muchtar, adding that the magazine included lascivious and lustful comments.

Playboy editor goes on trial in Jakarta [AP]
[Photo: Getty]

Rocker Pete Doherty Spared Jail Time [AP]
[Photo: Getty]

Earlier: If It's Sunday, Pete Doherty Must Be on Crack

Lawyer Wants Simpson Book Off EBay [AP]

Douglas Photo Battle Goes to Top Court [AP]

Rocker Pete Doherty Released on Bail [AP]
[Photo: Getty]

MySpace sued for copyright infringement [CBC via Boing Boing]
Universal Music Sues MySpace, Claiming Copyright Infringement [WSJ]