Gossip columnist escapes indictment

[Ian David]

Get me rewrite

By HARVEY SILVERGLATE
March 5, 2007 4:35:24 PM

What a surprise. The much trumpeted federal investigation into allegations that a former New York Post gossip writer tried to extort a friend of former President Bill Clinton has been quietly dropped.

Score one for the little guy. “Freedom Watch” recently received an e-mail from Jared Paul Stern, the now infamous New York Post gossip reporter at the center of the so-called “Page Six scandal,” informing us that “the feds finally admitted they have no case.” Clearly breathing sigh of relief, Stern concluded that he “just wanted to thank <“Freedom Watch”> for being the first to point that out.”

The Phoenix, it turned out, was closer to the mark than were the breathless headlines in the New York Times , which broke its page-one, above-the-fold story that Stern supposedly extorted billionaire supermarket mogul Ronald W. Burkle, seeking cash in exchange for favorable coverage. The Times reported the story and quoted allegedly damning surveillance-video tapes provided by Burkle’s security team in such a way that, to casual readers, it seemed as if Stern was not only on his way to indictment for extortion, but that he’d be the taxpayers’ guest at a federal prison before too long.

“Freedom Watch” was skeptical, in part because the Times’s source had turned over “only six heavily edited minutes of roughly three hours of recordings” of Stern in Burkle’s office discussing how Burkle could avoid negative gossip coverage in the Post. In the course of those conversations, Burkle, it seemed, repeatedly tried to trap Stern with legally damning language, only to have each such overture rebuffed by circumspect responses.

More:
http://www.thephoenix.com/article_ektid34880.aspx

[Swagman]

1. sounded like a set-up from the beginning

hope this guy sues the hell out of everybody. This was intimidation.