Melvin Smith, 37, says in a lawsuit filed in Manhattan’s state Supreme Court that Rhymes and Troy Green, both 33, “maliciously assaulted, beat, pushed and shoved him” outside the Corner Gourmet II deli near City Hall on Sept. 6, 2005.

The beating, court papers say, caused a cut under Smith’s right eye that required four stitches. Smith has been unable to work as a handyman because of neck and back injuries he also sustained, his lawyer, Bruce Regenstreich, said Thursday.

"He was asking for an autograph,” Regenstreich said. ``That’s all he was doing. He’s a fan. He wasn’t being a wise guy.”

"He got punched two or three times,” said Regenstreich. “He was taken to New York University Hospital. At the hospital, he indicated it was both of them who hit him.”

Green, of New York City, was arrested Sept. 7, 2005, and charged with third-degree assault, thirddegree attempted assault and second-degree harassment, all misdemeanors. He is due back in Manhattan Criminal Court on April 11.

Rhymes has not been charged with anything, the district attorney’s office said.

Smith’s lawsuit, made public Wednesday, seeks unspecified damages from Green and Rhymes, whose real name is Trevor Smith.

Rhymes’ representative at Violator Management did not immediately return calls from The Associated Press for comment.

Regenstreich said Thursday he did not know where Rhymes was and did not know if he had a lawyer.

New York City police also have been trying to meet with Rhymes to interview him about the shooting death last month of another of his bodyguards, Israel Ramirez. Ramirez, 29, was killed outside a Brooklyn studio where Rhymes was recording a music video.

Source: AP—AP Wire Service

Johnny Jackson, 54, of Gary, was found dead late Wednesday in a Gary home, the Lake County coroner's office said. Reports conflict on whether Johnny Jackson was related to Gary's legendary Jackson family, which includes pop stars Michael and Janet.

Police went to the home late Wednesday night after an upstairs resident heard a disturbance between Jackson and a woman on the first floor, Gary Police Cmdr. Jack Arnold said.

The resident went downstairs and discovered Jackson unresponsive with a stab wound to his chest, Arnold said.

Gary police believe Johnny Jackson, who replaced the Jackson 5's original drummer, Milford Hite, around 1967, was a cousin of the famous family. Some Internet sites report that Jackson was not a blood relative of the family.

"It hurts me so bad," said boyhood friend and current bandmate Anthony Acoff on Thursday. "I called him that night. We were supposed to go to a jam session."

Police still were looking for the woman who lived at the address.

Police did not recover a weapon from the scene, Arnold said.

Jackson grew up only a few blocks from the Jackson family and had made a name for himself as a drumming prodigy before he started high school, said Gordon Keith, who has sued Jackson family members several times over the rights to their early recordings with his Steeltown Records.

"He was a show drummer," Keith recalled. "There were times that he would outshine Michael at their shows."

In recent years, Jackson played with Acoff's band, White Dove.

Several months ago, Jackson's drinking forced his bandmates to drop him from the lineup. He rejoined the group only a few weeks ago, Acoff said.

"We played a show two weeks ago, and he was clean and he sounded great, man" Acoff said.

Source: AP-AP Wire Service

The three have pleaded innocent and claimed self defense in the Aug. 14, 2005 shooting.

The shooting either came from shots fired in anger or in self defense against a 25-year-old rap artist who took violent lyrics to heart, according to opening statements offered Thursday by lawyers in state Superior Court.

The opening statements kicked off the trial of Freddy Walker, 21, Christopher Cox, 19, and Lionel Wright, 22, soldiers stationed at Fort Wainwright who are facing charges of second-degree murder and firstdegree weapons misconduct.

State prosecutor Elizabeth Crail told the jury it would hear testimony and see evidence that the three were unprovoked and that the murder victim was armed only with an unloaded shotgun that was never fired.

Defense attorneys, however, played up the rivalry between two rap groups and played some of Wilkins'rap recordings, peppered with explicit and violent lyrics. Susan Carney, attorney for Cox, said "Snoop" took the rivalry over the edge.

According to police reports, the dispute began in the parking lot of The New Sunset Strip nightclub where Walker and Cox had a confrontation with Wilkins over a bandanna. Wilkins was an aspiring rap artist going by the stage name "Lil Coast" who worked at the nightclub and reportedly had gang ties.

Walker, Cox and Wright were associated with a rival rap group dubbed, "Ground Up."

After driving away from the club parking lot, the dispute escalated when Wilkins and friend Joel Bruney confronted the three men. Shots were fired and Wilkins was hit. Bruney took him to the Fairbanks Memorial Hospital emergency room, where he was pronounced dead shortly thereafter.

By that time, Walker, Cox and Wright had been detained at the Fort Wainwright main gate as they entered the post.

Crail displayed three firearms found in the soldiers' vehicle when they were stopped at the Army post; a 12-gauge shotgun, an AK-47 and a .40-caliber handgun. Crail said she could show that all three defendants had fired their weapons, while Wilkins, who she said had an unloaded shotgun, never fired during the altercation.

But Carney said it was Wilkins who was looking for a fight and emphasized her point by playing an explicit recording of Wilkin's music to the jury that specifically named "Ground Up."

The lyrics included lines like, "We'll lay you down and teach you homage" and "We'll put you six feet underground."

Carney went on to say the three defendants were simply enjoying a night out on the last weekend before their deployment to Iraq with the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team. The firearms found in the soldier's car had been used earlier that day for target shooting at the South Cushman shooting range, she said.

The trial is expected to take several days.

Source: AP-AP Wire Service

Information from: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, http://www.newsminer.com

LAS VEGAS (AP)-A double slaying last May that led to the arrest of a rap figure in California stemmed from a feud between Midwest and West Coast music industry groups, authorities said Friday.

But police said they didn't know if the arrest late Thursday in San Francisco of Andre "Mac Minister"' Dow, 35, would reveal links to other local cases or signal an end to a spate of violence dating to at least late 2004 in Kansas City, Mo.

"Rappers of prominence are getting killed," Las Vegas homicide Lt. Lewis Roberts said. "We don't know if it's over or not."

Dow, who has been identified as a suspect in a third slaying in California, was arrested Thursday in San Francisco on a federal warrant charging him with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, authorities said.

Clark County District Attorney David Roger said Friday he'll seek Dow's extradition for trial in Las Vegas.

Dow is believed to have fled to the Bay Area after his indictment Nov. 2 on two counts of murder and two counts of conspiracy to commit murder in the May 23, 2005, killings of Kansas City rapper Anthony "Fat Tone" Watkins, 24, and Jermaine "Cowboy" Akins, 22.

A Las Vegas police affidavit seeking an arrest warrant calls the slayings revenge for the November 2004 drive-by slaying in Kansas City of California rapper Andre "Mac Dre" Hicks, 34.

Surveillance cameras videotaped Dow, Watkins and Akins walking out of the MGM Grand hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip last May 22 about 80 minutes before Watkins and Akins were shot numerous times with an assault rifle as they sat in a car in a cul-de-sac in a residential construction site, according to the affidavit.

Another man, Jason Mathis, 26, an aspiring rap promoter, also has been charged in the slayings. He was arrested July 12, has pleaded not guilty and is being held at Clark County jail in Las Vegas awaiting trial.

Mathis owned the AK-47 used in the slayings, according to police. He also was accused of being a pimp for Lee Danae Laursen, a former Utah resident who was seen leaving the cul-de-sac after the shooting. Laursen, 21, was shot to death Nov. 4 in California and police have identified Dow as a suspect.

Dow, a music promoter who has appeared on rap albums, made headlines five years ago when he and another rapper brawled at the nationally televised Source Awards show.

Source: AP-AP Wire Service

Glitter, 61, whose real name is Paul Francis Gadd, was found guilty of committing obscene acts with two girls, ages 10 and 11, at his rented seaside villa in southern Vung Tau last year.

The former rock star showed no emotion while the verdict was read but threw the court into disarray by proclaiming his innocence afterward.

"I haven't done anything. I'm innocent. It's a conspiracy by you know who," Glitter shouted, apparently referring to British tabloid newspapers that had tracked down his presence in Vietnam.

Reporters and onlookers, allowed into the courthouse in southern Ba Ria-Vung Tau province to hear the verdict following the closed two-day trial, pressed toward Glitter in a scene of pandemonium as police fended them off and escorted him out of the building.

The judge said Glitter would be deported to Britain after serving his sentence. He was also required to pay compensation of $320 to each girl's family and court fees.

The court, in its verdict, cited graphic testimony from the girls that Glitter had fondled and molested them multiple times in his rented home and in nearby hotels.

"Caring for children is to care for our future...but Gary Glitter's acts went against this,"said Judge Hoang Thanh Tung. "He sexually abused and committed obscene acts with children many times in a disgusting and sick manner."

Glitter, who had faced up to seven years in prison, was given the minimum sentence of three by the court. The judge later explained that among the factors contributing to the lighter sentence was the $2,000 each that Glitter paid to each girl's family as "compensation" in December.

He has 15 days to appeal his sentence. His attorney, Le Thanh Kinh, said Glitter would be eligible for parole in a year, after he serves one-third of his time.

Glitter, a 1970s pop icon in Britain famed for his sequined jumpsuits, platform heels and bouffant wigs, sported a more conservative look for his trial: black clothes and a red bandanna on his head that he removed inside the court.

Glitter, who looked visibly thinner since his arrest, has been held at Phuoc Co prison outside Vung Tau since November 19, when he was caught at the Ho Chi Minh City airport trying to board a flight for Bangkok. Police confiscated his laptop, which had hundreds of pornographic pictures on it.

The former rock star, who hit his musical peak in the 1970s, had hits with "Leader of the Gang" and "Do You Wanna Touch" but is perhaps best known for his crowd-pleasing rock anthem "Rock and Roll (Parts 1&2)," which is still played at sporting events.

He was convicted in Britain in 1999 for possessing child pornography and served half of a four-month jail term. He later went to Cambodia and in 2002 was expelled from that country, but Cambodian officials did not specify any crime or file charges.

Source: AP-AP Wire Service

ROME (AP)-Best-selling novelist Douglas Preston was researching the serial killings of lovers in Tuscany when he found himself entangled in a probe of the decades-old crime spree.

Preston had gone to Florence last month to coauthor, with Italian journalist Mario Spezi, a book about the murders and mutilation of eight couples who were parked in their cars or camped in the Tuscan countryside between 1968 and 1985.

Before returning to his home in Bristol, Maine, Preston was ordered to answer questions from a prosecutor in the murder probe. By the time the two-hour questioning was over, he said he was under investigation for giving false statements.

"I felt like I had stumbled into one of my novels," said Preston, whose recent thriller co-authored with Lincoln Child, "Dance of Death," features a character framed as a serial murderer.

Preston, 49, has written several thrillers and horror novels, including "Relic," co-authored with Child, and "Tyrannosaur Canyon."

During the interrogation, prosecutor Giuliano Mignini played back wiretapped conversations between Preston and Spezi, the author said.

"For some reason, he felt our conversation included code words," Preston told The Associated Press in an interview earlier this week from his home in Maine. "At one point, we had said we would go for a walk and he demanded to know what we really meant by that." Preston said that Spezi took him to an abandoned villa near Florence where Spezi believed a gun used to shoot the victims had been hidden.

Mignini refused to comment, citing judicial secrecy.

Michele Giuttari, who heads the police unit investigating the serial murders, said that Preston had engaged in "criminal conduct" during his stay. He contested Preston's reconstruction of the interrogation, but declined to give details. "The only true thing is that (Preston) left the interrogation as a person under investigation" for giving false statements, Giuttari said.

In 1994, an Italian court convicted Pietro Pacciani, a farmhand dubbed "the monster of Florence" by the Italian media, of most of the slayings and sentenced him to life in prison. An appeals court acquitted him in 1996. Italian law allowed prosecutors to appeal the acquittal, and Pacciani died in 1998 while awaiting the ruling of Italy's top criminal court. In 1998, another court convicted two other Italian men as accomplices in the slayings.

Two of the victims were French and two were German.

Some investigators suspect that those convicted were doing the bidding of a secret club that wanted body parts for Satanic rituals. Mignini is investigating the death of Francesco Narducci, a doctor believed to have been part of the Satanic group. His body was in a lake near Perugia, in 1985, and an autopsy determined that he was strangled.

Preston and Spezi's book, "Dolci Colline di Sangue" ("Sweet Hills of Blood"), explores the possibility of a lone killer for the serial slayings. It is to published next month in Italy.

Spezi, who covered the slayings in the 1980s for local daily La Nazione, said he is being investigated for complicity in Narducci's murder. He said he was never told why, and authorities would not comment.

Giuttari said it was too early to say whether the prosecutor would seek trial for Preston.

Source: AP—AP Wire Service