Prosecutor can stay with case

The Supreme Court is allowing a prosecutor who helped in the making of the movie “Alpha Dog” to remain on the death penalty case on which the film is based.

The justices, in an order Monday, denied an appeal from Jesse James Hollywood, who prosecutors say masterminded a plot to kidnap and murder 15-year-old Nicholas Markowitz. He was killed in 2000 because his older half-brother owed Hollywood money, prosecutors say.

A California appeals court had removed Santa Barbara County Deputy District Attorney Ron Zonen from the case after he turned over sensitive materials to director Nick Cassavetes. “Alpha Dog,” a fictionalized account of the killing of a Southern California teen starring Bruce Willis, Sharon Stone and Justin Timberlake, was released last year.

Zonen said in court documents that he helped Cassavetes with “Alpha Dog” to help publicize the hunt for Hollywood, who was captured in 2005 in Brazil after spending nearly five years on the lam.

-- From the Associated Press

FINALLY

Funny ‘Hornet’? Seth Rogen has shed considerable weight to be taken seriously in his action-hero role in the upcoming movie “The Green Hornet,” but now the “Knocked Up” star tells , the film, which he is co-writing, may be more of a comedy after all.

Getting tough: U.S. prosecutors have told a judge that actress Anne Hathaway’s former boyfriend Raffaello Follieri deserves no leniency for cheating investors in a church scam.