BAGHDAD, Iraq — It should have been a joyous homecoming for the newlyweds. Iraqi army captain Wissam Abdul-Wahab and his bride had spent their wedding night at a fancy hotel.
But their first day as husband and wife became their last. Gunmen sprayed their car with bullets as they drove home Friday, killing the bride and wounding the groom.
"My poor Sally, she was very happy yesterday," sobbed her mother-in-law, Latifah Mohammed, too distraught to tell her son his 23-year-old bride was dead.
Lying in a hospital bed as doctors removed fragments of bone and shrapnel from his right hand, a bloodied and bandaged Abdul-Wahab begged his family to tell him what had happened to his wife.
"What happened to us? How is Sally? She is dead, right? Tell me the truth please. I have the feeling she is dead," he sobbed.
Abdul-Wahab's brother Ahmed, 28, who was also wounded in the drive-by shooting, reassured him gently: "She is fine. She is fine, believe me," he said as his eyes filled with tears.
In a country where violence claims dozens of people every day, it was one more story of heartbreak — a reminder of how ordinary lives have been shattered by the constant drumbeat of violence and death.
More than 1,700 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in a surge of violence since the new Shiite and Kurdish-dominated government was announced April 28.
Grimacing in pain in Yarmouk Hospital's emergency ward, Abdul-Wahab told The Associated Press that he and his bride were married Thursday at his parents' home in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Dora.
"My brother came this morning with a taxi driver to pick us up from Babylon Hotel," he said. "As we arrived at our home, a car with gunmen inside sprayed us with machine-guns. Suddenly I lost sight of everything and then found myself here."
Abdul-Wahab said he didn't know why he was attacked.
"No one threatened me before. I have no enemies…Who did this to me?"
Afterwards, his brother said he believed assailants came after them because he was a police lieutenant in Fallujah and his brother was a captain in the Iraqi army.
"We don't have any enemies to be attacked like this, but I'm sure that they targeted us just because my brother is an army officer and I'm a police officer… But I'm sure God will get revenge for us from those criminals who target Iraqi security forces," Ahmed Abdul-Wahab said.
It wasn't supposed to end this way, he said. His brother had waited for years to marry his sweetheart. Stocky and serious, the 25-year-old from Fallujah was a captain in training at Iraq's military school in Diyala.
"Wissam was in love with Sally for three years and when he saved up good money, he told us that he was dreaming of making Sally his wife," Ahmed Abdul-Wahab said.
The couple got engaged a year ago and planned a modest wedding because one of the groom's brothers was killed last fall during a U.S. military offensive against Fallujah.
Holding back tears as she stood over his bed, his mother could not bear to tell her son the truth.
"She is fine, my dear. I just saw her…and she just had medicine. She sleeps now at the hospital," she said.
Standing in the hospital corridors later, she burst into tears as she recounted waiting for the young couple to return home on Friday morning.
"I heard heavy shooting and realized that these shootings were not for happiness like we do to celebrate because the bullets hit the house and shattered the glass on me," the mother said.
Running out of the house, she saw her two sons, daughter-in-law and the taxi driver covered in blood.
"It was horrible…I can't forget this sight…I can't forget Sally's beautiful face as the bullet hit her," she said.
Softly Mohammed described a joyful wedding ceremony just a day earlier.
"She was very happy yesterday and she was laughing all the time and making jokes with all of us, as if someone told her that she is living her last hours," she said.
"She was saying 'I'm beautiful…I'm beautiful today.' Oh God I can't forget all that."
By: Associated Press
SAN FRANCSICO — A California prison inmate has sued over a fingertip in his frozen dinner — and this time the food company isn't crying fraud.
Pelican Bay State Prison inmate Felipe Rocha was polishing off his dinner one evening in March when he "chewed on a crunchy object" in his cornbread, discovered the fingertip and hasn't been quite the same since, according to the lawsuit against GA Food Services Inc. filed in federal court here Wednesday.
The Florida company wrote a letter of apology to the prison, located just miles from the Oregon border, regarding the "foreign object" in the food, and acknowledged a worker "severed" the tip of a finger while cleaning machinery when the cornbread was produced last July.
"There's probably some substance to Mr. Rocha's claims," John Hale, chief operating officer of GA Food Services, told the Associated Press on Friday.
"We had an industrial accident that day — it was a laceration," he said, adding the worker still "has all his fingers," but needed sutures.
"We're red-faced about it. We're apologetic about it," he said.
As if chomping on a bit of finger wasn't bad enough, Rocha's attorney said if was particularly offensive for his client because he's a Buddhist — and a vegetarian.
Attorney Jeffrey Schwarzschild said Rocha, who's serving time on a drug conviction, was traumatized, lost 15 pounds in six days because he couldn't eat and is still in counseling.
Schwarzschild said he would seek at least $75,000 in damages if the case goes to trial.
The last complaint in California about finger food came from Las Vegas resident Anna Ayala, who claimed she bit into a fingertip in a bowl of chili at a Wendy's restaurant in San Jose. But Wendy's officials insisted the digit had been planted so Ayala could shake down the company for some scratch.
In June Ayala was charged with conspiracy to commit fraud and grand theft.
By: Associated Press
LONDON — Filmmaker and accused child molester Roman Polanski on Friday won his libel suit against Vanity Fair magazine over an article that accused him of propositioning a woman while on the way to the funeral of his murdered wife, Sharon Tate.
The Academy Award-winning director was awarded 50,000 pounds, equal to about $87,000, in damages plus court costs.
The jury of nine men and three women took 4.5 hours to reach their unanimous verdict at London's High Court.
"It goes without saying that, whilst the whole episode is a sad one, I am obviously pleased with the jury's verdict today," Polanski, 71, said in a statement.
Judge David Eady also ordered Vanity Fair publisher Conde Nast to pay the equivalent of $300,000 of Polanski's costs within 14 days. The total bill for costs could be much higher.
Polanski, director of "Rosemary's Baby," "Chinatown" and "The Pianist," sued Vanity Fair's publisher over a 2002 article that accused him of propositioning a woman while on the way to the funeral of Tate, who was killed by followers of Charles Manson in 1969.
The article alleged that Polanski put his hand on the woman's thigh and promised her: "I will make another Sharon Tate out of you."
Polanski's lawyer, John Kelsey-Fry, said Polanski had been "monstrously libeled for the sake of a lurid anecdote." The director's lawyers deny that the incident ever occurred.
Conde Nast accepted that the alleged incident at Elaine's restaurant in Manhattan did not happen before Tate's funeral, but alleged that it happened about two weeks later.
In a weeklong case that featured lurid probing of Polanski's sex life and testimony in his defense from movie star Mia Farrow, lawyers for Vanity Fair labeled Polanski a "refugee from morality."
The magazine's lawyer, Tom Shields, told the jury Thursday that Polanski's "law of morality" knew no rules — "only violations of civilized conduct which, it appears, can be readily excused."
Polanski, who won an Oscar in 2003 for the Holocaust drama "The Pianist," has lived in France since fleeing child-molestation charges in the United States in 1978. He was unwilling to come to Britain for fear of extradition, but he was allowed to testify by video.
After the verdict, Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter said he found it "outrageous that this story is considered defamatory, given the fact that Mr. Polanski cannot be here because he slept with a 13-year-old girl a quarter of a century ago."
Polanski said the case had made him "relive the horrible events of August 1969, the murders of my wife, my unborn child and my friends."
"The memory of my late wife Sharon Tate was at the forefront of my mind in bringing this action," he added.
Farrow, appearing as a witness for Polanski, said the director was consumed by grief when she met him at Elaine's in late August 1969.
Farrow, who starred in "Rosemary's Baby," said the director had been "unable to talk about anything else … He just kept saying over and over, 'Why? Why?"'
Conde Nast is based in New York, but libel actions concerning the international media are often brought in British courts because they are considered friendlier to claimants than U.S. courts.
Carter said he found it "amazing that a man who lives in France can sue a magazine that is published in America in a British courtroom."
"Nevertheless, it was interesting to see the wheels of British justice move, and I wish Mr. Polanski well, and we have a magazine to put out," he added.
By: Associated Press
STAMFORD, Conn. — A company that organizes wrestling entertainment has agreed to remove an Arab-American character from a popular television show after receiving hundreds of complaints about an episode that aired the day of the deadly London bombings.
World Wrestling Entertainment said it would no longer feature Muhammad Hassan on its "SmackDown!" program, which draws more than 5 million viewers a week.
Hassan will be featured Sunday on a pay-per view event. Beyond that, his future is uncertain. The WWE's Web site said the character "has taken a leave of absence from SmackDown."
"We asked them to remove it because we thought that was the right thing to do," said Joanna Massey, a spokeswoman for UPN, the station that airs the show.
During the episode, five Hassan henchmen in ski masks and camouflage ran into the ring to beat up his rival, who had defeated Hassan's sidekick. The men then carried Hassan's sidekick over their heads, which to some evoked a martyr's funeral.
There was not time for UPN to edit the program so they opted to put up an advisory to parents because of the bombings, said Gary Davis, a WWE spokesman.
Hassan, a character introduced last November and played by Mark Copani, grows up in Detroit as a typical American. But after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, he believes he is treated differently by his fellow Americans and feels alienated.
"The whole point of the story line and this character was to point out the injustices Arab-Americans have suffered since 9-11," Davis said.
But the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee objected to the character. One of its campaigns resulted in nearly 500 complaints sent to WWE, a spokeswoman said.
"The character deals with a very sensitive issue," said Siwar Bandar, a spokeswoman for the committee. "However, he does so in a context that is violent, that is turning his back on America."
Davis, the WWE spokesman, called Hassan "an interesting character."
"This was an unfortunate sequence of events," he said. "Some people drew the conclusion these people were terrorists even though they were not terrorists."
By: Associated Press
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Long John Baldry, the British blues legend who helped launch the careers of such rock greats as Rod Stewart and the Rolling Stones, has died, his agent and friends said. He was 64.
Baldry was admitted to a Vancouver hospital with respiratory problems in April and died of a chest infection Thursday, agent Frank Garcia said on the musician's Web site.
"The music world has lost an absolute legend," said close friend Anya Wilson, a Toronto music publicist who worked with Baldry in the 1970s.
"They've lost one of the first and most powerful white blues singers — an innovator, an entrepreneur of new music and one of the most wonderful people you could hope to meet."
Baldry, nicknamed Long John because of his 6-foot-7 height, was born in East Maddon, England, but became a Canadian citizen in 1981.
Credited as one of the main forces in British blues, rock and pop music in the 1960s, he first hit the top of the U.K. singles charts in 1967 with "Let the Heartaches Begin."
One of his most memorable hits was "Don't Try to Lay No Boogie-Woogie on the King of Rock and Roll" was co-produced by Stewart and Elton John.
Although Baldry released over 40 albums — that included the songs "You've Lost That Loving Feeling," "Come and Get Your Love" and "A Thrill's a Thrill" — singing was considered his forte.
He was perhaps best known for nurturing the nascent talent of a host of musicians who are now worldwide superstars.
Baldry's early 1960s stage act featured the likes of Stewart, Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Jimmy Paige and Ginger Baker.
By: Associated Press
WALLACE, Idaho — Authorities carried out a manhunt across the Pacific Northwest on Friday for a convicted rapist who allegedly stabbed his 12-year-old daughter, tied her up and left her for dead on the side of a mountain road.
The father, 37-year-old John Rollins Tuggle, is the only suspect in the case, Sheriff Chuck Reynalds said. Tuggle was released from an Idaho prison last year after serving nine years for raping his 14-year-old sister-in-law.
"We have the whole world looking for him," Reynalds said.
The girl was stabbed with a pocket knife five times in the upper body and was in serious condition in nearby Spokane, Wash., Reynalds said. The girl was talking to investigators and was expected to survive the attack, officials said.
A $10 million warrant was issued for Tuggle, an outdoorsman who authorities believe may be hiding in the northern Idaho wilderness.
"We know he's very confident in the outdoors," Reynalds said. "He's very capable and I think, very dangerous."
Tuggle left his Colorado home earlier this month and drove to Idaho to see his children — apparently for the first time since he went away after the rape conviction.
Tuggle told his ex-wife he was taking their daughter on an outing to the shopping mall, and he later called to say they were having "a good time," Reynalds said. The sheriff said the girl likely was stabbed a couple hours later and spent four to five hours bleeding before she was found by people who heard her yell as they were searching for a campsite.
Tuggle was believed to be driving a red 1989 Ford Escort with Colorado license plates and "is known to carry large knives," the sheriff's office said on a wanted poster.
Tuggle is described as 6-foot and 200 pounds with brown hair and blue eyes and numerous tattoos.
Tuggle and the girl's mother were married on Jan. 13, 1993, in Coeur d'Alene, five days before their daughter was born. In December 1993, they had their second child, a boy, according to court records. They were divorced while Tuggle was in prison.
Tuggle was released from prison in January 2004 and moved to Colorado, where he lived with a brother and worked as a painter, Reynalds said.
By: Associated Press
GOLDSBORO, N.C. — A man being admitted to a psychiatric hospital Friday grabbed a deputy's gun, wounded a hospital employee and then shot himself to death, authorities said.
The deputy was helping admit the 27-year-old man to Cherry Psychiatric Hospital in Goldsboro, about 45 miles southeast of Raleigh, Onslow County Sheriff Ed Brown said.
Neither the deputy nor the shooter were immediately identified.
William Shelton Denning, 44, a health care technician at the psychiatric hospital, underwent surgery at Wayne Memorial Hospital, where his condition was not available, according to a news release from the state Department of Health and Human Services.
Cherry Psychiatric Hospital went into lockdown after the shooting. The hospital serves several hundred patients from more than 30 counties in eastern North Carolina, according to a hospital Web site.
By: Associated Press
BOSTON — Joyce Amaral knew before buying her home that it was near the ninth hole of a golf course.
But she says wasn't prepared for the number of errant golf balls that came flying into her yard — more than 1,800 in five years — or the number of golfers who came along to retrieve them.
So she and a neighbor sued the owners of Rehoboth's Middlebrook Country Club. On Friday, the state Appeals Court found the wayward balls constitute a "continuing trespass" and ordered a lower court to find a solution.
During the 2003 trial, Amaral arrived at court with six plastic buckets, each containing about 300 golf balls, to illustrate how many landed in her yard. She said she gave many others away and had even used some to play golf herself.
She said damage from the stray balls included a broken window and broken screens and although no one was hurt, Amaral testified that the fear of being hit by a golf ball had diminished her enjoyment of her yard.
Amaral's neighbor, Carol Pray, said stray balls regularly landed in her swimming pool, forcing her to limit her children's time in the pool. She said a ball once struck her husband.
Michael F. Drywa Jr., who represented golf course owners Peter and Lucretia Cuppels, said they paid for numerous alterations to the golf course to try and alleviate the problem, including relocating the tee, installing signs instructing golfers to "aim left," and planting trees alongside the fairway.
He said the Cuppels hadn't decided whether to appeal.
Superior Court Judge Robert J. Kane had dismissed the lawsuit, ruling the homeowners had not shown operation of the golf course constituted a nuisance, which state law defined as an interference in the use and enjoyment of their land.
But the appeals court said the homeowners had shown that the stray balls were a "trespass," and thus an invasion of their land.
"It all really comes down to volume," said Preston W. Halperin, a lawyer for Amaral and Pray.
"We acknowledged that an occasional ball coming off of a golf course onto a neighboring property is going to happen," he said. "But this is not a situation where it is an occasional ball. We're talking about hundreds of balls to the point where she couldn't sit in her backyard."
By: Associated Press
BERLIN — Jermaine Jackson told reporters Friday his brother's child molestation trial "tore him apart mentally" and left the star too exhausted to attend their father's 76th birthday bash in a Berlin hotel.
Hundreds of fans, many dressed as Michael Jackson, thronged the massive Estrel hotel in Berlin's working-class neighborhood of Neukoelln where the party was held. Michael said in a statement on his official Web site Thursday he would not attend.
"That's fine, he was very tired and he's resting," Jermaine said. "His case tore him apart mentally. He's very strong mentally, but he needs his rest right now."
Among the hundreds of Jackson fans attending the party were several who had flown from Germany to California to support him.
Alexander Greve, 25, who arrived for the party decked out in a single glove, black wig and sparkly silver jacket, said he spent six days standing outside the courthouse in Santa Maria, Calif.
"I even shook his hand. That was a really great feeling," Greve said, adding that it was obvious Jackson would be too tired to travel to Berlin.
But others, such as Kayhan Ayden, 28, held out hope their hero would still make an appearance.
"Maybe he'll surprise me and still show up," Ayden said.
Jermaine and Tarino were the only Jackson siblings to attend their father's party, after sisters Janet and LaToya also canceled plans to travel to Berlin.
The Jacksons are to be received by Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit on Friday at city hall, where they will sign Berlin's guest book.
By: Associated Press
BERLIN — An ultralight airplane crashed close to the German parliament and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's office late Friday, killing the pilot but harming no one on the ground, police said. A city official ruled out a terrorist attack.
The pilot died when his plane plunged onto a lawn in front of the Reichstag, which houses the lower house of parliament, in downtown Berlin shortly before 8:30 p.m. local time, police spokesman Hansjoerg Draeger said.
No one else was injured when plane came down in the wide lawn and no buildings were damaged.
The burned wreckage lay about 650 feet from the parliament and about 330 feet from Schroeder's office. It was not immediately clear if Schroeder was in his office.
"Nothing, absolutely nothing indicates a terror background," Eckhardt Koerting, Berlin's top law enforcement told reporters.
At the time of the crash there was a line of people waiting to get into the Reichstag, whose landmark glass dome is one of the city's main tourist attractions. One of them, Boris Narewski, said he was startled by the crash. "We turned and saw the flames," he said.
Details on the identity of the pilot were not immediately available, but Draeger said the ultralight plane had taken off from Straussberg, outside of Berlin.
German air control officials said the plane had not appeared on their frequency and suspected the crash was a suicide attempt.
Alfred Koser, a 52-year-old architect, said he saw the plane flying low and slow between the Reichstag's dome and an adjoining block of lawmakers' offices.
"I got the feeling he has to do something: climb or land," Koser told The Associated Press. "The plane flew right over me. I thought it was some kind of show."
By: North County Times wire services
LOS ANGELES - Actor Tom Sizemore Friday admitted violating probation, which could result in a prison term, and was ordered to remain in a Pasadena drug treatment facility pending a September hearing.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Paula Adele Mabrey revoked Sizemore's probation stemming from his conviction last October for methamphetamine possession.
She ordered the actor to return to court on Sept. 15. He could face up to three years in state prison.
"It seems harsh, but it's not," Sizemore said after Friday's hearing, referring to the order to remain in a live-in treatment facility.
Attorneys said the actor, who has appeared in such film as "Black Hawk Down" and "Saving Private Ryan," has been staying at the 138-bed Las Encinas treatment center since July 11.
"I feel that Mr. Sizemore has made a commitment to this program," his physician, Dr. Joseph S. Haraszti, said outside court.
"I have a very good, working alliance with him — a therapeutic alliance. I feel that he really, really wants to get better."
One of Sizemore's attorneys, Michael Robell, said Sizemore's drug problems stem from "chronic depression."
During a hearing at the Airport Branch Courthouse, which was delayed because Sizemore showed up several hours late, he admitted to a series of probation violations.
Among those were that he tried to use a prosthetic device to fake a May 25 drug test and that he repeatedly violated an order by Mabrey to be drug-tested every three days.
"I think the judge was very firm with Mr. Sizemore," Deputy District Attorney Sean Carney said after the hearing. "I think she's essentially put him to the test. He either needs to comply 100 percent or now — based on his admissions to violations Friday — she has full discretion to sentence him up to three years in state prison.
"When we come back on Sept. 15, I think the court is looking to see full compliance. And if she sees something less than that, I think she has indicated quite clearly today that she'd be ready to incarcerate him," the prosecutor said.
Sizemore failed to appear at a court hearing last week, prompting a different judge to issue a bench warrant for his arrest. That jurist, however, agreed to hold the warrant pending Friday's hearing.
At a hearing last month, Sizemore denied using the prosthetic device on May 25 and insisted he was never even asked to provide a urine sample that day.
His testimony contradicted the accounts of two drug counselors at a Tarzana treatment center, who said Sizemore used a device known as a "whizzinator" to fake the test.
Sizemore is also free on bail pending his appeal in a separate case, in which he was sentenced to 17 months in jail and four months in a county rehabilitation program for domestic violence, criminal threats, vandalism and making obscene and harassing phone calls against ex-girlfriend Heidi Fleiss.
By: Associated Press
SYDNEY, Australia — The health minister of Australia's Queensland state quit Friday amid a scandal over a surgeon dubbed "Dr. Death" who is blamed for the deaths of at least eight of his patients.
The state's political leader, Premier Peter Beattie, said Gordon Nuttall would leave his post next week as the first step in a series of statewide health reforms.
Nuttall has come under fire throughout an inquiry examining how Dr. Jayant Patel was allowed to practice medicine in Queensland despite having being cited for negligence by medical boards in Oregon and New York.
A report by the Queensland state health body, Queensland Health, had linked Patel to at least 87 patient deaths during the two years he worked as a surgeon at eastern Australia's Bundaberg Base Hospital.
But an audit, carried out by Queensland Health officials independent of the inquiry, examined the files of 221 patients who died, were transferred to another hospital or reported "adverse" outcomes after being in Patel's care. That audit found that 88 of Patel's former patients died but that the surgeon contributed to the deaths of only eight of them through an "unacceptable level of care." It cited a further eight cases where Patel may have contributed to patient deaths, but said the results were inconclusive.
Patel, who was born in India but is a U.S. citizen, left his job at Bundaberg Base Hospital in April for Portland, Ore., after a senior nurse, Toni Hoffman, alleged malpractice. Hoffman testified before the inquiry that Patel regularly altered his patients' charts to remove references to post-surgery complications, and that the documentation's accuracy could not be relied upon.
Patel has not commented on the allegations.
Nuttall defended his tenure in the department, saying managers at the rural hospital had failed to respond adequately to complaints raised by Hoffman and others about the quality of care.
"The systems failed in that hospital," he said. "These matters were not brought to my attention by those people who should have brought it to my attention."
By: Associated Press
NEW YORK — A violinist who claims the New York Philharmonic fired him because he is a man says some of the women who were promoted ahead of him gave flowers and other gifts to their bosses.
Anton Polezhayev, 29, says in a lawsuit that he was asked to leave after the 2003-2004 season, in the last month of his 17-month probation, despite being told by orchestra officials that he was doing "a fine job" and that his playing was "perfect."
Polezhayev's lawyer, Lenard Leeds, said Friday that the Philharmonic's personnel manager, Carl R. Schiebler, even wrote a letter to a landlord on the violinist's behalf, saying he expected Polezhayez would be "a long-term member of the orchestra."
Meanwhile, Polezhayev says in court papers filed Thursday, seven female violinists won permanent jobs or were promoted over him, although some had less experience than he had, or had not auditioned for the positions.
Polezhayev's court papers and Leeds said that some of the women's progress was accomplished by giving gifts, including flowers and champagne, to musical director Lorin Maazel and Glenn Dicterow, the concertmaster or principal violinist.
Of the Philharmonic's 33 violinists, 20 are women, the orchestra's Web site says.
"I think that if I were exactly the same person in a female body they would keep me for life and never fire me," Polezhayev said Friday by telephone.
Eric Latzky, the Philharmonic's spokesman, said he had no comment on the lawsuit.
Polezhayev, a U.S. citizen since 1996, is a native of Russia where he began his musical education in Moscow. En route to the Philharmonic, he won or placed well in several international violin competitions.
During his Philharmonic probationary period, Polezhayev was supposed to have 13 meetings with orchestra leaders so they could give him feedback and progress reports, court papers say. No such meetings were held, he says.
After Polezhayev complained to Schiebler and Dicterow about what he considered gender discrimination, they brought his complaints to Maazel's attention.
Maazel told Polezhayev in a meeting that he was being fired for "unprofessional behavior" and because he "was not good for the orchestra," despite being a good violinist, court papers say.
The musician said no one had expressed concern before about his behavior. On Feb. 10, 2004, court papers say, he received a letter from Schiebler telling him he was being fired as a Sept. 19, 2004.
Polezhayev says in court papers he was actually fired "in part, due to his gender and/or because of his good faith opposition to discriminatory practices."
"There was long-term damage to my career," Polezhayev said in the phone interview. "I will have a lot of trouble getting a job with another good orchestra. Getting fired is a black mark on your career. All musicians know that."
Polezhayev's lawsuit names the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Maazel, Dicterow and Schiebler as defendants. He is demanding a permanent job, back pay, and unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
Leeds said that after his client was fired, he was forced to give up his Manhattan apartment and move back into his parents' Long Island home. The lawyer said Polezhayev has not worked since being fired by the orchestra.
The Philharmonic is currently in Vail, Colo., for a nine-day concert series.
Posted in Backpage on Saturday, July 23, 2005 12:00 am
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