Runners-up, names from past issues hit the news: Dykstra embezzles from his bankruptcy estate; Crystal Mangum, Duke U. false accuser commits murder and Nicholas Cage gets crazier.
Former Major League Baseball star and “financial guru” Lenny Dykstra, charged with embezzling property from his bankruptcy estate. He is accused of arranging to spirit away a “dazzling array of antiques, big-screen TVs, artwork and collectible books from his residences,” including the one he purchased from hockey great Wayne Gretzky. We first noted his antics in the “under watch” section of the February 2006 issue of TAR, which came about because I viewed what I then described as a “stunning CNBC interview” in which he appeared and sounded stinking drunk; I subsequently discovered he had been accused of sexually battering a 17-year-old girl, was reportedly a target in a gambling probe and in 1991 charged with DUI. He was “promoted” to the “runners-up” section of the August 2009 issue, which detailed his bankruptcy filing the day before the former Gretsky mansion was to be auctioned in a foreclosure sale and how his reported $58 million net worth in 2008 imploded only a year later to a negative net worth of roughly $50 million. It also includes links to several must-see videos, including a hysterical “Daily Show” piece.
Crystal Mangum, 32, who was described as the “alleged victim” in the April-May 2006 issue of TAR, which detailed the false accusations of rape made by her with the support of then District Attorney Mike Nifong against three Duke University lacrosse players. Mangum is now charged with murdering her boyfriend, Reginald Daye during an argument. In an all-too-common story of judicial system malfeasance, she has repeatedly escaped appropriate consequences for crimes, which has only allowed her to go on to commit more of the same, culminating in the ultimate crime. In 2002, after giving a taxi driver a lap dance at a Durham strip club, she stole his car and led law enforcers on a high-speed chase that officers thought was over when she ended up on a dead-end road. Instead, as the officer exited his vehicle, she tried to run him over. Her blood alcohol level registered .16 per cent, which when combined with attempted murder should give the judicial system the right and obligation to coerce abstinence for the rest of her life; but no. In February 2010 Mangum was arrested for assaulting her then-boyfriend, setting his clothes on fire in a bathtub, threatening to stab him and then resisting arrest, all of which occurred while her children were at home and is so over-the-top it suggests (along with an apparently related charge of identity theft) that methamphetamine was on board. In a June 2010 television interview, in a wonderful case of alcoholic confabulation-speak, Mangum claimed, “I do feel that I am being unjustly treated because of preconceived notions about my character in the media.” Yes, and war is peace and slavery is freedom. She’d be a terrific politician if only her felonies could be wiped clean.
Actor Nicholas Cage, 47, charged with domestic abuse battery, disturbing the peace and public drunkenness after an argument with his wife in New Orleans’ French Quarter. He earned an “under watch” entry in the Nov-Dec 2009 issue of TAR, after filing a $20 million lawsuit alleging his former business manager was reckless with his money and failed to pay more than $6 million in taxes owed by Cage. I implied the accusation was contradicted by his extraordinarily reckless purchases, including more than a dozen mansions (one, a castle in England), a couple of Bahamian islands, two yachts, a Gulfstream jet and more than 50 high-end cars, and pointed to Cage’s own admission that he went through a period of “drug and alcohol abuse.” He claims to have gotten “out of that scene on his own.” Nick, I don’t think so. My only question remains: did you relapse or were you a victim of an alcoholic business manager, or both?