A Whitewater Tidbit Sure to Tantalize Devoted Conspiracy Buffs

Royal kitsch! . . . A movie star’s castle! . . . A sex symbol’s news value! . . . Gag me!

Conspiracy theories abound at Susan McDougal’s criminal embezzlement trial in Santa Monica. The courtroom is packed with spectators, the majority of whom make no secret of their belief that this little bunco case is independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr’s handiwork--payback for McDougal’s refusal to finger President Clinton for Whitewater investigators.

We tend to subscribe to chaos theory--that bureaucracies are too inept to engage in massive conspiracies without screwing them up. Still, there’s the Nancy Mehta/Richard Mellon Scaife connection, unearthed from the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley:

On June 5, 1981, under Executive Order No. 1230S, Reagan created the Presidential Task Force on the Arts and Humanities. Among the members were Mehta, wife of conductor Zubin, and Scaife, the conservative Pittsburgh billionaire.

Small world, isn’t it?

Now, Mehta is the prosecution’s star witness in the $150,000 embezzlement case against McDougal, her former employee. Scaife is a benefactor for many conservative causes--including the post at Pepperdine University that Starr would have assumed had he not been consumed with Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky, and the Arkansas Project, an endeavor by American Spectator magazine to dig up dirt on Clinton. In fact, the Clintonistas call Scaife the Daddy Warbucks of the right wing.

MARKETING A PRINCESS: Striking a blow for freedom of kitsch, a federal judge in Los Angeles refused to stop the Franklin Mint from peddling Princess Diana dolls, plates, jewelry and other trinkets. And the judge has removed a clause from a lawsuit that refers to purveyors of Di doodads as “vultures feeding on the dead.”

“This language is immaterial and impertinent as it has no bearing whatsoever on the legal issues presented,” U.S. District Judge Richard Paez wrote in a 58-page opinion that serves as the first decision on this side of the pond involving her charity’s efforts to control Diana memorabilia.

The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund filed the suit last year, charging that it is the only entity authorized by the princess’ estate to market memorabilia bearing her name and likeness.

But Perez, dismissing one of the suit’s counts, ruled that although a celebrity’s publicity rights are recognized in the United States as property that can be passed on to heirs, there is no such law in Britain. Because the late princess lived in England, her estate cannot invoke U.S. law to claim her publicity rights here, he said.

The fund has endorsed some products bearing Diana’s name--notably, margarine and British lottery tickets--for a fee.

Franklin Mint, owned by Stewart and Lynda Resnick of Los Angeles, says it is donating some of the money it makes off Diana-bilia to her favorite charities. But the items are not officially endorsed by the princess’ memorial fund.

GET IT IN WRITING: A judge in Los Angeles Superior Court has tossed out a lawsuit that called Cher a “temperamental, spoiled and conniving entertainer.”

The suit was filed by a construction firm that charged that the former Mrs. Bono refused to pay for work done on her $5-million Malibu “dream house.”

Judge Ronald Cappai found that Arya Group Inc. didn’t have a signed contract with the singer to back up its claims.

The company had alleged that it was hired in 1996 to build a house off Pacific Coast Highway for Cher. The suit charged that Cher fired the firm last Thanksgiving and sicced sheriff’s deputies on construction workers.

A ‘HARD COPY’ MOMENT: Snippets of the infamous but rarely seen Pamela Anderson/Bret Michaels sex tape are newsworthy, a federal judge in Los Angeles has ruled.

Anderson and Michaels, the Poison rocker she dated before her marriage to Tommy Lee, had obtained an injunction against Internet Entertainment Group blocking the company from posting the tape on the Internet or otherwise hyping it.

Anderson charged that the television tabloid show “Hard Copy” and its parent studio, Paramount, had violated her copyright and publicity rights by airing segments of the tape Jan. 21.

She alleged that “Hard Copy” was participating in the hype of the tape, which featured the candle-lit couple in gothic costumes, which of course later were peeled off to a disco version of Gregorian chants.

In granting Paramount’s motion for summary judgment, U.S. District Judge Dean Pregerson found that “Hard Copy’s” use of the tape “was for the purpose of news reporting” and “did not involve substantial appropriation of contents of the tape.”

SOUNDS OF SILENCE: The trend in Los Angeles Superior Court toward issuing gag orders continues. Although the upcoming trial over promotion of the former Miss Petite USA Pageant hasn’t exactly been a hot topic in the news, attorneys for defendant Tony Shepherd asked for and received a gag order barring principals in the case from discussing it with the media. The attorneys at McDougal’s criminal trial are gagged as well.