Accused child pornographer/Grammy winning R&B singer R. Kelly will finally head to court September 17th to stand trial FIVE years after he was first arrested and charged. In 2002 he pleaded not guilty to 14 counts of child pornography after videotapes emerged showing him in sex acts with an underage girl. There’s a lot of confusing issues flying around this case in addition to the lack of a speedy trial. There is some controversy over exactly when the tape was made. Theoretically, the girl in the video was 13 years old. However Kelly’s people have argued that the tape is more recent than the police claim, making the victim older than thought. Though they’re also claiming that it’s not actually R. Kelly on the tapes, but rather a computer generated image of him. I don’t know a lot about that kind of technology – is that a reasonable possibility? The trial has faced various complications leading to its five year mark.

“Since Kelly’s arrest, the case has been hit with delay after delay. [Judge] Gaughan seemed close to setting a trial date last year, but then he was hospitalized after falling off a ladder and suffering multiple fractures. By the time the judge recovered, Kelly needed emergency surgery for a burst appendix, which caused him to miss a status hearing in February.

“Scheduling was further complicated by demand for Kelly’s attorney, Ed Genson. Genson, a highly sought-after attorney, represented Conrad Black in a lengthy trial that ended last month with the newspaper executive being convicted of three counts of mail fraud and one count of obstruction of justice.”

[From the Chicago Sun Times]

That’s a freakishly long and incredibly coincidental list of holdups. Since then, R. Kelly has had SIX best-selling albums, three national tours, and released a DVD set of “hip-hopera” skits. Arguments over when the video was made have delayed the trial quite a bit. I cannot believe how little an effect this has had on Kelly’s career. Shouldn’t this be the kind of thing that ends it? I know that not all criminal problems hurt all celebrities. Some rappers have more “street cred” for having been charged with murder and other hardcore crimes. But being a possible child predator and filming child pornography? How does that not ruin a career? It really disgusts me that people would keep listening to and supporting this guy.

R. Kelly is shown in concert on in April, 2006 at the Chicago Theatre. Thanks to PR Photos.

Yesterday Ron Goldman’s family was finally awarded all of the rights to OJ Simpson’s book “If I did it.” The family first won a $38 million wrongful death lawsuit against Simpson in the late nineties. Simpson has publicly declared that he will never voluntarily pay the Goldmans a penny, even if it means he never works for the rest of his life. When he wrote his “hypothetical” book, he created a shell company in his children’s’ names, so that he could still get the money and the Goldmans couldn’t touch it. Well obviously that didn’t work out to well, as they, and most of the rest of the world, were incredibly offended that Simpson would write such a book and actually get to keep his reported $1 million advance. So they took him to court and have now won the rights to everything regarding the book, which has been auctioned off. They’ve decided to publish it under the True Crime genre. Simpson has again lashed out against the Goldman family, saying that if he can’t make money off the book, neither should they. He did an interview broadcast on business news Web site Market News First on Tuesday.

“I find it sort of hypocritical that they talked everybody in America to boycott the book: it was ‘immoral,’ it was ‘blood money,’” he told interviewer Kate Delaney. “But we now see it wasn’t ‘blood money’ if they got the money.”

Goldman attorney David Cook said his clients were justified in accepting rights to the book as payment for the judgment against Simpson.

“Mr. Simpson himself has placed us in this horrific setting of seeking to liquidate this asset,” he said. “His comments are beyond redemption.”

[From the Associated Press]

In another snippet of his interview, Simpson talked about how hard his life was considering what a great guy he is, and how very, very unfair this world is.

“To me, it hurts me the most. The two things that hurts me the most— well, other than being considered a murderer and all that— is that to some degree, exposing this racial divide, which might be a good thing. I don’t know. It’s being considered a batterer when every girl I’ve ever dated stood by me during the trial. Every girl I’ve ever dated, when Interpol in Europe and the FBI and everybody interviewed them and said, That’s not O.J.

And even Nicole’s closest friends will tell you that after we split up and even while we were going through our divorce, every time she had a problem, her closest friend will tell you she would come to me. If she had problems with guys or how to handle guy, I was the guy she came to for advice, and yet I ended up through one incident on a New Year’s night, which we’ll talk about tomorrow, became the poster boy for abuse. And that hurts me. That still hurts me.”

[Snipped from On the Record with Greta Van Susteren]

The Goldman family was then interviewed by Greta Van Susteren on FOX news, where Fred Goldman responded.

“The killer [Simpson] several months ago filed bankruptcy of his sham company that he used to move the money from HarperCollins to himself. And in an effort to stop us from getting the rights to the book in California, he filed bankruptcy.

The bottom line is that when all was said and done, the court awarded us the rights to the book through bankruptcy, and turns out that’s a good thing as far as we’re concerned. We took away an asset of his that he was protecting, that he was using to make money. We took it away. He will never make money with it again.”

[From On the Record with Greta Van Susteren]

Kim Goldman, Ron’s younger sister, added the following:

“You know, our hope with acquiring the rights, obviously, like my father said, was to take something away from him. But at this point, you know, we have an opportunity to try to turn this around and do something positive with it. You know, my father and I for a long time have wanted to start a foundation, which we did. We launched it. And you know, with a portion of the proceeds of the book going to the foundation, we hope for better situations of other victims of crime. So we’re going to work very hard to make this an easier process as we move forward.”

[From On the Record with Greta Van Susteren]

O.J. Simpson is so delusional it boggles the mind. Not only is he a murderer, but he’s angry that people don’t treat him like the special, wonderful celebrity that he believes he is. Someone who should be able to kill and avoid the law, be it jail or financial judgments. He’s truly mad that these people are still upset that he killed their son. I can’t even say much, I get so mad just knowing that a person like this can exist in the world.

Robert John Bardo, the obsessed fan who murdered actress Rebecca Schaeffer (”My Sister Sam”) in 1989 and who was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and sent to Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, California, was stabbed 11 times on Friday by a prison inmate.

Bardo was airlifted to a local hospital where he was treated and returned to the prison.

According to a report in the LA Times, the suspect is a 49-year-old murderer who is said to be serving a life term. State Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officials said the stabbing occurred in the yard while inmates were on their way to breakfast at approximately 6:20 in the morning. Two inmate-made weapons were recovered at the scene.

“She came into my life in the right moment. She was brilliant, pretty, outrageous, her innocence impressed me. She turned into a goddess for me, an idol. Since then, I turned an atheist, I only adored her.”
- Robert John Bardo

[Morbidly Hollywood]

Before her murder in 1989, Bardo (who was then just 19) was obsessed with the young starlet and had written her letters several times, even attempting to gain entry onto the “My Sister Sam” set. Later, Bardo obtained Schaeffer’s address through a private detective agency, made his way to Los Angeles and tracked down her apartment building. Upon buzzing her apartment, Schaeffer (who was said to be waiting for a script for an upcoming audition at the time) answered the door to find no script, but instead Bardo waiting and wanting an autograph. After asking for her autograph Bardo left, only to return approximately 20 minutes later. When Schaeffer answered the door a second time, Bardo pulled out a gun from a brown paper bag and shot her once at point-blank range in the chest.

Schaeffer was quicly transported to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead 30 minutes after her arrival. The following day, Bardo was arrested in Tucson, Arizona where he confessed to her murder. He was tried and convicted without a jury by prosecutor Marcia Clark on charges of capital murder. On December 20, 1991, Bardo was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Note by Celebitchy: Here’s the intro to “My Sister Sam”:

“NYPD Blue” actor Esai Morales’ ex-girlfriend is accusing the actor of intentionally giving her herpes. Elizabeth Mazzocchi filed a lawsuit on Thursday accusing Morales of “’intentional and negligent transmission of a sexually transmitted disease, assault, battery and breach of oral contract.’” In the suit, Mazzocchi claims that Morales knew that he had herpes, but chose not to tell her. This resulted in “’an incurable disease that will have associated medical expenses, pain and discomfort for the rest of her life.’”

According to the lawsuit Morales moved into Mazzocchi’s L.A. home in March 2006. Mazzocchi began acting as his manager around that time as well, forfeiting other career opportunities for herself. She also claims that Morales began abusing her shortly thereafter, and raped her in their home on May 19th, 2006. She also claims that he continually kicked and punched her throughout the course of their time together. Under the Health and Safety code, Morales has a legal obligation to inform any potential partners that he has an STD.

The suit doesn’t say how much Mazzocchi hopes to be awarded; only that it is in excess of the jurisdictions of the court. She’s retained Gloria Allred as her attorney, which means she must be fighting mad and trying her case in the press. Allred is a celebrity lawyer, and is on TV more than George Bush. Or close to it. It’ll be interesting to see how this all plays out, and how much money Mazzocchi is awarded, if she wins. Though in all likelihood, Morales will probably settle, to avoid so much bad publicity. I know in some jurisdictions knowingly exposing someone to an STD is a criminal matter, though I’m not sure that’s the case in L.A. I wonder if that factored into her decision to handle this in civil court?

No, not back in Vogue, she’s just on the cover of the magazine of that name. She’s looking cute, despite the completely ugly and overly large bow featured on her dress, and is out promoting her three upcoming movies. She’s also promoting the fact she looks fab-u-lous for thirty-five. Winona tells us about how she feels about her December 2001 arrest.

“Two months prior to that, I broke my arm in two places, and the doctor…was giving me a lot of stuff, and I was taking it at first just to get through the pain,” she told Vogue’s August issue of the run-up to her shoplifting, with the main “stuff” being the painkiller Oxycodone. “And there was this weird point when you don’t know if you are in pain but you’re taking it.

“It isn’t a reckless [state], like you’re out of your head. It’s just confusion.”

It was while she was in this state of confusion that she decided to embark on her ill-fated Beverly Hills shopping trip.

“The attention was what was embarrassing,” she said of negative publicity over her arrest. “It was the December after Sept. 11…So much attention was being paid to me, when we had just been attacked, and there was all this really important news going on.

“I never said a word. I didn’t release a statement. I didn’t do anything. I just waited for it to be over.”

While Ryder admits that what she did was wrong, she “didn’t have this tremendous sense of guilt” about it, “because I hadn’t hurt anyone.”

“Had I physically harmed someone or caused harm to a human being, I think it would have been an entirely different experience.”

E! News

What an amazing way to address your arrest. Wait seven years, make a statement while looking hot, and then proceed with your career. I wish Britney would try this on for size.

I had never heard of Winona Ryder breaking her arm, so I decided to delve a little further, and found this…

When Ryder was arrested for shoplifting at Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills, she was caught with a painkiller called endocet, in the same drug family as percocet and vicodin. Dr. Clifford Bernstein says they are powerful narcotics. He says, “They’re all in the morphine family.”

Ryder’s defense team has told “CJ” that endocet had been given to Ryder by her doctor for pain from a previously broken arm. But now “CJ has learned that the same drug could provide relief in the way of a reasonable defense on the shoplifting charges.”

Celebrity Justice

Do you really get prescribed morphine related drugs for a broken arm? I guess that’s why her arm didn’t hurt enough to prevent her from hefting a big load of stolen goods out of the store.

I can’t explain it, and I should be embarrassed to admit it, but I love Star Jones gossip. Probably because she’s just so dense. Not literally dense, but in the sense that she just seemed to have no clue how tacky and disliked she was. It did seem to sink in after a while, and she admitted that in hindsight her wedding was overdone, as was her obsession with talking about it. So if nothing else, it’s nice to see some growth in terms of self-awareness. In anticipation of her upcoming show on CourtTV, Jones is writing a confession of sorts for Glamour magazine, out August 7th. Titled “Getting Over Myself,” the piece discusses her dramatic weight loss of an estimated 150 pounds. In the past, all Jones would say was that she had “medical intervention.” Of course that could mean ten different things. Most believe that she had gastric bypass surgery, considering how quickly she lost a dramatic amount of weight.

“The Star power hour will be a chatty daily compendium of the top stories from the worlds of law, news, pop culture and entertainment. In other words, it’ll be everything from Scooter Libby to Paris Hilton to “Harry Potter.” At least that’s the plan.

“’Provocative television that’s entertaining and relevant — not for insult or embarrassment purposes, but for inspirational purposes and entertainment purposes,’ is how Jones described her hopes for the tone of her show to TV critics during a Court TV news conference Sunday morning.”

[From the Detroit Free Press]

It sounds like Star is trying pretty hard to make nice, and that’s a good thing. She’s acknowledged that she was self-absorbed and given to ridiculous extravagances in the past. I think her “talent” for self promotion, and the way it annoyed people, really clouded the fact that she’s pretty sharp. She was a New York City criminal prosecutor before joining “The View.” If she could wipe out all her boasting for good, she could still have a really great career ahead of her.

Picture note by Celebitchy: Star Jones is shown in her side career as a lobbyist in a picture from 4/23/07 in which she was visiting Congress on behalf of First Star, which strives to bring awareness to child abuse. It was also sponsored by Build a Bear workshop, so surely she got paid. Thanks to WENN for this picture.

On Saturday rapper Remy Ma (nee Remy Smith) was arrested for trying to kill Makeda Barnes-Joseph, 23, a friend of hers, outside a club called Pizza Bar in the Meatpacking District in Manhattan. Early Saturday morning police received a call reporting gunshots in the area. There they discovered Barnes-Joseph with a gunshot wound. Police also found a black Cadillac Escalade registered to Remy Ma which had been in an accident and had been abandoned a few blocks away. Barnes-Joseph is currently is stable condition.

Remy, accompanied by her attorney Scott Leemon, turned herself into police late Saturday evening, where she was also booked on charges of assault and criminal possession of a weapon. Leemon said, “I ask everyone to keep an open mind…Things are not always as they seem.”

“Sasha Tcherekoff, owner of the Pizza Bar, said a review of security videotape taken inside his nightspot showed the rapper and her friends having a good time before they exited.

“The police have indicated to us that the altercation happened a block away,” the owner said. “The security tapes determined there was no physical or verbal altercation while they were in the Pizza Bar.”

[From the Washington Post]

According to The New York Times Remy Ma and Makeda Barnes-Joseph were at Pizza Bar to attend the birthday party of a friend, rapper Krys-Style. Apparently $3,000 was missing from Remy’s purse, which led to the argument.

“When the group left the restaurant, Ms. Barnes-Joseph got into her Maxima — it was not clear whether she was alone — and Ms. Smith got into the Escalade S.U.V. The police believe the attacker left the Escalade, got into the Maxima, shot Ms. Barnes-Joseph and then raced back to the Escalade. The S.U.V. was believed to have crashed into another car at West 14th Street and 10th Avenue before being abandoned two blocks south at Little West 12th Street with its air bags deployed. Investigators said it was not known how many people had been inside.”

[From The New York Times]

Apparently the victim’s Nissan was still on the street hours after the shooting. The driver’s door was open and blood was visible to onlookers. They could also see a gold stiletto pump and a black bra inside. The New York Times also reported that Remy Ma was “a protégée of the Bronx rapper Big Pun, and after his death in 2000 she continued rapping with Fat Joe and Terror Squad.” Remy told police, “’At the end of the day, I’m a girl…It’s not like I roll up and shoot up everybody.’”

I’m putting Remy Ma on my list of ladies not to mess with. So right now we’re at Foxy Brown (if she’s packing any manicuring instruments), Little Kim (if any of her crew are around, although it’s good to know she’ll perjure herself for you if you shoot someone on her behalf) and Eve (on a bender). Man, it’s like I’m going to have to live in a cave or something.

Pictures are of Remy Ma being led away from the 6th precinct in Greenwich Village after her arrest. Photos and photo description from WENN.

Page Six has reported that Foxy Brown has been missing for over a week – since Friday, June 29th. Not just missing from paparazzi and the press, but missing from friends, family, and lawyers. Foxy Brown should never be far from her lawyers. She was last seen on a flight from Kennedy Airport to London, where she prevented the flight from leaving for over an hour. Members of her crew were late, and Brown employed several tactics to stall the plane.

“’She was trying to hold up the show because some of her entourage was late,’ said one passenger. ‘She got off the plane, then on, then off again. We’re sitting there for an hour and then the pilot comes on and said we’d be waiting a little longer for some people. Then another hour went by and they had to refuel.

‘The flight attendants said it was some of the most atrocious behavior they ever saw.’

Brown, who was ‘spilling out of’ a short green dress, ‘finally got on with her group and traded her first-class seat for a business-class seat so she could sit next to one of her people. It was an overbooked flight, so 400 people have to be inconvenienced? Some of them missed their connecting flights,’ our witness claimed.”

[From Page Six]

Jack Sampson, Foxy’s lawyer, seemed worried, but tried to downplay it when he talked to Page Six by noting that she could be working on her album. “We’re all trying to find Foxy…she’s probably getting some much needed rest. She’s been given authorization to travel and she could be working on her album. She is trying to get her album done. Depending on whom she’s working with, she could be anywhere.” But wouldn’t other people know about that? You’d expect that someone in her family or her famed entourage would be kept in the know.

A celebrity missing for a bit wouldn’t really be cause for worry in and of itself. However Brown’s criminal record (both as perpetrator and victim) makes it a bit more worrisome when she just disappears. Two weeks ago she was attacked by a group of women who beat her up, stealing her hearing aid and money from her purse. Fox had just dumped her boyfriend, a pimp, who then called on his “ladies” (is that the proper term? Forgive me, I’m not up on my pimp verbiage) to beat her up. Fox herself is known for having quite a temper, having hurled various items at not one but two manicurists over the past two years. Until that incident with the pimp, I would have said we probably don’t have to worry about Foxy Brown. Seemed like she could take care of herself. So let’s assume for the time being that unless the ratio is higher than 1 Foxy Brown to 3 Pimp’s Ladies, she’s probably fine.

Update by Celebitchy: Rhymes with Snitch points out that Foxy Brown was performing in Manhattan this weekend, so if she was missing that’s no longer true.

Someone leaked parts of the transcript of O.J.’s controversial “If I Did It” interview with his would-be publisher, Judith Reagan, to The NY Times. The interview was never aired after outrage from the victims’ families and the public forced Fox to scrap it. OJ’s book was similarly canned, and Reagan was fired from her job at Harper Collins.

All of the details O.J. gave in the interview and book were laughably called “hypothetical” in a transparent attempt to maintain his innocence. O.J. received a hefty advance for the never-published book that would have seen him profit on “hypothetical” murder. The exact amount of the advance was not confirmed, although speculation is that it was around $1 million. O.J. said that he spent his book advance on bills, but a federal judge froze the money, saying it was owed to the victim’s families as part of a $33.5 million civil lawsuit they won against him. Neither his ex-wife Nicole Brown’s family or the family of her murdered friend Ronald Goldman has seen a dime.

In the transcript obtained by The NY Times, O.J. says there are details of the uh, murders by some random other person that he can’t remember. He does say that if he did do it, there was an accomplice that he calls Charlie. The guy came to him that night to tell him dirt about his ex-wife Nicole, probably that she was sleeping around, and he got all worked up and decided to confront her.

Charlie came with him to the scene, where Goldman happened to be by sheer bad luck and good samaritanship for returning Nicole’s sunglasses. Goldman tried to do karate on O.J. after Nicole “fell and hurt herself,” most likely after O.J. smacked her, and then O.J. used the knife that this guy Charlie brought to him from the car at the opportune moment.

After the deed was done, O.J. asked “Charlie” to get rid of the evidence for him:

Mr. Simpson introduces a new character to the well-known cast: a man identified only as Charlie, someone he had recently met and befriended, and who, in the hypothetical accounts, served as an unwilling accomplice to the murders.

Mr. Simpson says in the interview that Charlie came to his house that night and told him of troubling aspects of Ms. Simpson’s personal life, things Mr. Simpson said “had to stop.” The two drove to Ms. Simpson’s nearby home. He says that he always kept a ski hat in his car for chilly mornings on the golf course, along with a knife to deal with “crazies.” Mr. Simpson says he left the knife in the car, with Charlie.

As Mr. Simpson approached his ex-wife’s door, Mr. Goldman arrived, the two began exchanging angry words, and Ms. Simpson came out and joined the argument, Mr. Simpson says. After she “fell,” Mr. Goldman squared off against Mr. Simpson in a karate stance. Then Charlie showed up with the knife.

Mr. Simpson says he remembered grabbing the knife from Charlie. He says he then blacked out. His next memory is being covered in “blood and stuff.”

Asked by Ms. Regan to describe the bloody scene in greater detail, he at one point suggests that viewers read the book because he found it too difficult to discuss. Moments later, he speaks about it in a way that suggests he holds no more knowledge of the crime scene than anyone else who had watched the televised trials…

The transcript does not contain any remarks by Mr. Simpson about what happened to the bloody clothes or the knife he described in the interview. But in the manuscript Mr. Simpson wrote that he gave a bundle to Charlie with explicit instructions to “make sure it disappears … forever.”

At first I thought, “Oh ‘Charlie’ is Kato Kaelin,” but now I’m pretty sure he’s not. The reason I assumed that is because he’s the only guy I know connected to the case who was a friend of O.J. and Nicole and who saw O.J. that night.

O.J. said that the man who came to him with the news about Nicole was a “recent” friend, though. Nicole and Ron Goldman were murdered in June, 1994. Kaelin moved into the guest house at then-Nicole and O.J.’s mansion in mid January 1993, according to his testimony at Simpson’s trial. He ended up moving to the guest house behind O.J.’s Rockingham estate when Nicole and O.J. sold their place. He wasn’t a “recent” friend, and since Nicole is the one he was friends with first and who invited him to stay, it doesn’t seem like he would betray her by talking smack to O.J.

TMZ had a recent story that Kaelin said “What do you mean if?” when asked what he thought about O.J.’s book “If I did it.” There’s a book about Kaelin by a guy who interviewed him extensively and claims he knew how crazy jealous O.J. was, which does not jibe with his cleaned-up testimony at O.J.’s trial. The author says Kaelin tried to spare O.J. and be likeable on the witness stand, and didn’t talk about how whacked O.J. was. Kaelin denied O.J. was jealous in his cross examination, and basically said that O.J. didn’t talk about Nicole to him, wasn’t any different on the night of the murders, and that the only thing he heard was three “thumps” that night that he mistook at first for an earthquake, but was probably just O.J. turning on the air conditioning.

Regardless I don’t think Kato was the one at the scene, so who was there? Of course O.J., I mean the other murderer O.J. is channeling for his aborted book, is responsible, not the accomplice. That accomplice should be at least tried since O.J. already bought his way out of a life sentence.

Who was O.J.’s recent friend at the time who could have handed him the knife and disposed of it afterwards? They have stuff like this all the time on that “Cold Case” show. You can’t try a person twice for the same crime, but you can find the other person that’s responsible and bring them to justice.

Of course there might not have been another person there, and O.J. could be making Charlie up to make it seem like he was driven to double murder by forces beyond his control.

Update: Maybe O.J. isn’t clever enough to make up a person who wasn’t there. According to the evidence at his trial, the defense “noted that the genetic material of an unknown person was found in the steering wheel blood,” which they used as part of their conspiracy theory that O.J. was framed. There was also said to be “unexplained [foot] imprints” at the scene that didn’t match O.J.’s size 12 Bruno Maglis.

Who could this other guy have been that was with O.J.? Well, wasn’t his friend, fellow ex football player Al Cowlings, the one who drove him on that weird low speed chase in the Bronco that was all over television? Cowlings played high school football with O.J., though, so it wasn’t like he was a recent friend.

There was a guy called Christian Reichardt who testified on O.J.’s behalf that he spoke to him on the phone on the night of the murders and that he was calm and relaxed. Reichardt was the boyfriend of Nicole’s best friend Faye Resnick, and according to a Fox News article he was helping wean O.J. off steroids. (Steroid rage may have caused O.J. to freak out and murder his ex and her maybe-boyfriend.) Given that his name also starts with a “Ch,” it’s not so much of a stretch to assume that he could have been “Charlie.”

A drug runner 61 year old grandma was caught with 214 pounds of ganj. Grammy Garcia told police that she received only $275 in welfare a month and regularly gambled to buy money for weed support herself.

When police turned a deaf ear to her pleas, Grammy decided to take another route and pulled out a gun, no two, and said, “Give me back my bingo pot, bitches!” That’s when they decided intervention needed to happen and maced her bingo loving ass.

No, not really. But that’s what I imagined happened. Instead after that lousy excuse didn’t work, she claimed she was tricked which was a total farce because we all know if the crazy lady had 214 lbs. of weed that she had to protect and hide at all costs, she most definitely knew they weren’t a different strain of tomato plants.

Bad news: She’s getting 3-12 years in the slammer.

Good news: She will probably hand-make bingo cards out of discarded trash and bingo balls made out of buttermints and convince the other inmates to play with her.

And here I have posted a picture of Ryan Phillippe just because I’m sure he and Granny have the same interests.