― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 1 June 2004 05:18 (twenty years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 1 June 2004 05:19 (twenty years ago) link
― ok not realleee (Leee), Tuesday, 1 June 2004 05:20 (twenty years ago) link
― Lazer Guided Mellow Leee (Leee), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 05:01 (twenty years ago) link
― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 05:27 (twenty years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 06:59 (twenty years ago) link
― AaronK (AaronK), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 13:15 (twenty years ago) link
DEPT. OF EXONERATIONFACE IN THE CROWDIssue of 2004-06-07Posted 2004-05-31In early May last year, a sixteen-year-old girl named Martha Puebla testified in a preliminary hearing in Los Angeles about a pair of murders that were allegedly committed by her ex-boyfriend, a reputed gang member named Jose (Peps) Ledesma. Within days, on May 12th, Puebla herself was shot to death near her front door, in the Los Angeles suburb of Sun Valley. Several months later, police arrested Juan Catalan, who was then twenty-four years old, for her murder. The police theorized that Catalan committed the crime at the instigation of Ledesma and of Catalan’s brother Mario, who had been accused of aiding Ledesma in the earlier murders. The charge made Juan Catalan eligible for the death penalty.
From the start, Catalan insisted on his innocence.“The police tried to get him to confess, but he wouldn’t do it,” his lawyer, Todd Melnik, said last week. “He kept asking them to give him a lie-detector test.” Catalan told his lawyer that he had a straightforward alibi for the evening that Puebla was shot. He said that he was with his six-year-old daughter at Dodger Stadium, watching the home team lose to the Atlanta Braves, 11-4. Melnik set out to verify his client’s story.
“I subpoenaed the Dodger Vision tapes, which show shots of the crowd, and I also got the Fox Sports broadcast of the game,” Melnik said. “I knew where Juan was sitting, and in some of the shots I could tell that the seats were occupied, but you couldn’t tell it was him sitting there.” Melnik picked up another lead, however, through his negotiations to obtain the tapes from the Dodgers. He learned that on the evening of May 12th the HBO comedy series “Curb Your Enthusiasm” had been shooting scenes in the ballpark. In that episode, which aired earlier this year, Larry David, the star of the show, attends a Dodgers game with a prostitute. (David doesn’t hire her for sex but, rather, to sit with him in his car so that he can travel in the car-pool lane on his way to the game.) Melnik asked if he could examine the HBO footage, too.
“It sounded very cool because my life is so lacking in anything interesting,” David said last week. “It did seem like kind of a lame story, but I told the lawyer, ‘Go ahead, go crazy. Look at anything you want.’ And we hooked him up with everything from the stadium, all the footage we shot that night.” On the day that Melnik came in to see the tapes, David at first left him to watch on his own, but later he stuck his head in the editing room, where the lawyer was examining the footage.
“I’m there for maybe five minutes, and the lawyer screams out, ‘There he is!’” David recalled. “We couldn’t believe it. We rewound the tape, and just as I’m walking up the aisle in one shot, this guy is sitting right there. And then there was another shot where he was standing up.” Melnik said, “Jesus Christ, if I didn’t jump three feet in the air! It was totally a eureka moment.”
The HBO footage also included time codes, so Melnik was able to pinpoint precisely when his client was at the ballpark. He also located records from a cellular-phone tower which proved that Catalan had received calls in the vicinity of Dodger Stadium at the time of the murder. Melnik presented the HBO footage and other documentation in a preliminary hearing earlier this year, and the judge dismissed the case against his client. Juan Catalan was released from jail, where he’d been for five and a half months, and he has returned to work at his father’s machine-tool shop. (Ledesma and Mario Catalan are still awaiting trial.) As for David, he said, “I tell people that I’ve now done one decent thing in my life, albeit inadvertently.”
— Jeffrey Toobin
― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 13:17 (twenty years ago) link
is David's character supposed to be so unappealing? or are we supposed to secretly sympathize with him?
― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 15:22 (twenty years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 15:25 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 15:27 (twenty years ago) link
― NA (Nick A.), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 15:28 (twenty years ago) link
― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 15:28 (twenty years ago) link
― Lazer Guided Mellow Leee (Leee), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 16:55 (twenty years ago) link
― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 17:41 (twenty years ago) link
― NA (Nick A.), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 18:27 (twenty years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 19:46 (twenty years ago) link
― Vinnie (vprabhu), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 20:03 (twenty years ago) link
― AdamL :') (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 02:59 (twenty years ago) link
― AdamL :') (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 03:02 (twenty years ago) link
― AdamL :') (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 03:04 (twenty years ago) link
― Aaron W (Aaron W), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 03:31 (twenty years ago) link
― cºzen (Cozen), Saturday, 24 July 2004 17:18 (twenty years ago) link
― jaymc, Saturday, 24 July 2004 17:57 (twenty years ago) link
― cºzen (Cozen), Tuesday, 27 July 2004 16:21 (twenty years ago) link
― cºzen (Cozen), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 16:32 (twenty years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Monday, 6 September 2004 23:58 (twenty years ago) link
― cºzen (Cozen), Sunday, 12 September 2004 16:25 (twenty years ago) link
― cºzen (Cozen), Sunday, 12 September 2004 16:26 (twenty years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Sunday, 12 September 2004 16:28 (twenty years ago) link
― stockholm cindy (Jody Beth Rosen), Sunday, 12 September 2004 16:53 (twenty years ago) link
I just re-watched the survivor ep. really funny.
― cºzen (Cozen), Sunday, 16 January 2005 14:21 (nineteen years ago) link
― cºzen (Cozen), Sunday, 16 January 2005 14:26 (nineteen years ago) link
[while ordering coffee at Starbucks] Larry David: I'll have a vanilla... one of those vanilla bullshit things. You know, whatever you want, some vanilla bullshit latte cappa thing. Whatever you got.
[after leaving a terrible dinner party] Larry: What's the level of anger here? What am I dealing with? Cheryl: Well, I'd have to say at least an 8.7. Larry: 8.7? That's not that bad. I thought it would be at least a 9. Cheryl: It was a 9. Then you broke that lamp, and the crazy woman screamed at you, and it got you some pity points. Larry: Pity points. That's fabulous, I love pity points. But how can I get to a 7? I know a 6 is out of the question, but is there any way I can get to a 7?
Larry: Nice house. Susie: Yeah, come on. I'll give you a tour. Larry: Naw, it's ok. Susie: No, come on. Larry: No, it's ok. I-I get it. Susie: You get it? Larry: Yeah, it's a house. It's new. I get it. It's nice. Susie: You get it? Ok, you know what? Get the fuck out of my house, Larry.
[repeated line] Cheryl: Why would you do that?
― cºzen (Cozen), Sunday, 16 January 2005 14:32 (nineteen years ago) link
― Andrew Blood Thames (Andrew Thames), Sunday, 16 January 2005 14:58 (nineteen years ago) link
― Andrew Blood Thames (Andrew Thames), Sunday, 16 January 2005 15:41 (nineteen years ago) link
hahaahaahahaaha!
― jed_ (jed), Sunday, 16 January 2005 15:44 (nineteen years ago) link
― Andrew Blood Thames (Andrew Thames), Sunday, 16 January 2005 16:00 (nineteen years ago) link
― polyphonic (polyphonic), Sunday, 16 January 2005 16:55 (nineteen years ago) link
CYE is hilarious. I haven't laughed out loud so much in a long long time. And yeah, the jewelry store thing was hilarious.
― Stormy Davis (diamond), Sunday, 16 January 2005 21:51 (nineteen years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 16 January 2005 22:10 (nineteen years ago) link
i actually didn't want to move out of the place that i lived even though it was a horrendous arrangement for fear of not having hbo and thereby missing curb your enthusiasm.
― firstworldman (firstworldman), Sunday, 16 January 2005 22:51 (nineteen years ago) link
― Jordan (Jordan), Sunday, 16 January 2005 22:53 (nineteen years ago) link
― firstworldman (firstworldman), Sunday, 16 January 2005 22:58 (nineteen years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Sunday, 16 January 2005 23:29 (nineteen years ago) link
― sundar subramanian (sundar), Monday, 17 January 2005 00:31 (nineteen years ago) link
My Seinfeld-loving girlfriend did not like it, unfortunately, 'cause she hates the wife character. I don't blame her, even though I think those scenes are largely well done.
― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 17 January 2005 04:27 (nineteen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 17 January 2005 04:29 (nineteen years ago) link