CELEBRITY JUSTICE ™

Constantine Maroulis convinced a judge his baby mama is a picture throwing wrecking ball who is anything but a domestic violence victim, and the judge agreed ... at least temporarily.

Constantine got a restraining order against Angel Reed, just hours after HE was arrested for allegedly kicking her in the groin. He claims that she has a history of abusing him.

The "American Idol" alum made a beeline for court after getting released, armed with paperwork alleging a pattern of abuse by Angel. He says she's thrown a picture frame at him, destroyed numerous personal items and went on a campaign of harassment.

The restraining order is tricky, since they share a 4-year-old daughter and live in the same house. The judge ordered Angel to stay clear of the house. The judge did not prohibit her from having contact with their kid.

Captain Morgan is putting his foot down -- not on a barrel of rum ... on another Captain it claims is ruining its business by using a similar character to sell psychedelic drugs.

The company that's drawn the Captain's ire is Captain Amsterdam. According to the lawsuit, Captain Amsterdam sells e-cigarette refills, as well as "psychedelic and stimulant drugs such as salvia" ... a throwback to Miley's escapades with salvia.

Morgan claims Amsterdam sells a whole line of "questionable" goods using various Captain names, including Captain E-Juice, Captain Salvia and Captain Kava.

Joe Simpson claims the guy suing him, Jessica and family for $12 million is simply trying to extort the Simpson family over a supposed deal that never came to fruition.

In the lawsuit -- filed in New York -- Papa Joe does say he was working with Jeffrey Bowler in 2010, but says that deal "died on the vine" way back when and has nothing to do with the mega deal that came five years later.

Furthermore, Joe says the deal he was working on with Bowler was to license her makeup line only ... and had nothing to do with selling the entire product line.

Chicago Blackhawks star Patrick Kane will no longer be on the cover of EA's "NHL16" due to the criminal investigation he's now facing.

Kane was slated to be on the cover of the game for the second time but EA just released a statement saying they're pulling the plug.The company said he won't be on the cover and he also will not be involved in any promos for the game.

As we've reported ... Kane is under investigation for an alleged incident that went down with a woman in an Upstate NY bar.

Kelly Rutherford is ripping into the judge she says effectively "arrested" her children, and sent them back to their father ... who she claims lied to the court to get his way.

Rutherford says Judge Ellen Gesmer's ruling to send the kids back to Daniel Giersch was "shocking, illegal, and abusive to my children." She adds that Gesmer "lacked sufficient knowledge of the law, or didn't care that she was violating the law."

She insists the ruling violates the Constitution because the children are U.S. citizens.

Rutherford also says her ex lied so he could get an emergency order. She says Giersch told the court he didn't know where Kelly and the kids were, but she says the truth is ... he Skyped with the kids several times, and always knew they were safe.

She saved her last jab for Gesmer, saying ... "She has to live with herself, and if she has a conscience, I suspect she will not sleep well, ever again."

Jessica Simpson has been sued because her dad Joe allegedly stiffed a guy out of an enormous finder's fee when she sold the majority stake in her fashion company ... but what's really interesting about the lawsuit is the sale price.

Jeffrey Bowler claims he made a deal with Joe Simpson for a 10% finder's fee if Bowler could find a buyer for The Jessica Simpson Collection. It's a strange deal, because Bowler says it was made nearly 10 years ago over the phone and never committed to writing.

Fast forward to April 2015, when Bowler claims Jessica sold a majority stake in the business for $120 million. Bowler claims he put Joe in touch with the buyer, arranged the meeting and helped seal the deal.

Bowler says in the lawsuit Jessica, Joe, Tina and Ashlee screwed him out of his $12 million commission.

Forget about the finder's fee. It's interesting Bowler claims the majority stake went for $120 mil. There are many reports calling The Jessica Simpson Collection a billion dollar business. On one hand, it would seem the majority stake would go for much more than $120,000,000.

It's possible the "billion dollars" is gross sales, which gets whittled down a lot.

A rep for Jessica says Simpson "has never met Mr. Bowler nor has she ever had any dealings with him whatsoever."

Busta Rhymes is under investigation for allegedly threatening to slap fans at the BET Awards.

Kim Simpson says it all started when her friend accidentally bumped into the rapper while dancing at the June awards show. They apologized, but she says Busta went nuts, warning, “I’ll bite you and not that kinda bite” if it happened again.

Things escalated later when the two gals started snapping pics with reality star Deelishis, and Busta somehow got caught in the camera flash crossfire.

His reaction … “Don’t make me slap you” and then charged them, but security stopped him.

Kim filed a police report and cops are trying to find Busta to interview him.

We reached out to Busta's lawyer ... he had no comment.

Terrence Howard squared off in court this morning with ex-wife Michelle Ghent ... and the first witness was the actor's sister-in-law, whose testimony was read out loud, about a threesome sex tape that was allegedly used to extort Howard out of money.

Terrence is trying to get the divorce settlement thrown out on grounds he signed it under duress, claiming Michelle held sex tapes and photos over his head in order to get way more support than she was entitled to receive. She got $5,800 a month for 3 years, even though they were only married for a year.

Yvonne Howard, Terrence's sister-in-law, testified Michelle said she "had him [Terrence] by the balls," and then claimed to have a tape where Terrence is having sex with a woman and another woman is present. It's odd it's called a threesome, because the testimony only referred to one female engaged with Terrence. The other female was filming.

On his way out during the lunch break, Terrence said wants justice to prevail ... and then plugged Mariah Carey on "Empire."

8:58 AM PT -- The couple's kids have arrived at court.

Kelly Rutherford defiantly showed up for the court hearing where she's supposed to surrender her children to her ex-husband -- but she did NOT bring the kids.

TMZ broke the story ... Kelly was ordered to appear before a NY judge because Daniel Giersch is demanding Kelly return their two kids to him in Monaco. Kelly's visitation period ended last week, but she's refusing to send them back to Daniel.

He insists Kelly's basically a child abductor now. The judge specified Kelly needed to bring them to court today, but it looks like she's not willing to give in ... not yet.

Giersch is not in court, but his mother is there ... hoping, we guess, to take custody of her grandchildren.

Leonardo DiCaprio fought the French and won ... but all he has to show for it is a few grand.

The "Titanic" star was awarded $9,000 in damages from the French magazine, Oops! Leo filed suit a few months back over a cover story alleging he got Rihanna pregnant, and didn't want the baby.

Frederic Truskolaski, owner of the mag, expected to lose the lawsuit ... but was anything but magnanimous in defeat, trashing Leo and making more claims that could make him another $9k lighter.

Gossip Cop first reported Leo's win.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. didn't defame his ex-GF Josie Harris when he said she was using all kinds of drugs -- because she really was popping the pills, and he says he's got proof.

When ex boxing champ Kassim Ouma gets out of Africa, he could land right in jail -- there's now a warrant out for his arrest after he went M.I.A. from court last week.

According to docs, Ouma was supposed to be in front of the judge on Aug. 5 for a progress report in his felony drug possession case. TMZ Sports broke the story ... Ouma was arrested in April 2014 after allegedly fighting with a man he claims made a pass at him. He ended up getting charged for cocaine possession, and not the fight.

But last week, when Ouma's attorney told the court the former IBF junior middleweight champ was in Uganda ... instead of the L.A. courtroom ... the judge issued a bench warrant.

Troubled NFL star Josh Gordon's camp is shooting down widespread reports he got busted for another DUI ... and making it clear he's still working hard to get back into the league.

News of an alleged DUI arrest was all the buzz on social media Monday morning after an Atlanta news station retweeted a story about Gordon's July 2014 bust in North Carolina.

Gordon's agent, Drew Rosenhaus, confirmed to TMZ Sports there is NO new arrest ... and adds Josh settled the old case. As we previously reported, Gordon pled guilty and got off with 12 months probation ... which he's just one month shy of completing.

Rosenhaus told us Josh is keeping his nose clean and "doing all the things he has to do to get ready. We fully anticipate him being back for the 2016 season."

Former Clippers owner Donald Sterling is suing V. Stiviano and TMZ over the recording and publishing of a conversation he had with Stiviano.

Sterling filed the lawsuit Friday in L.A. ... claiming Stiviano "surreptitiously" recorded their convo sometime between September 2013 and April 2014 -- and then either she, or her agents, provided that recording to TMZ.

TMZ posted the recording on April 25, 2014

In the docs, Sterling accuses TMZ of publishing the tape in violation of his privacy rights -- and says, as a result, he's been damaged "on a scale of unparalleled and unprecedented magnitude." He also says Stiviano and/or TMZ doctored the contents of the recording.

Dan Bilzerian says he's clean as a whistle, which is why he's suing a website for claiming he's riddled with an STD.

Bilzerian filed a defamation suit against TheDirty.com and its founder, Nik Richie, claiming its story that he gave a sex partner chlamydia is false and damaging.

The playboy is complaining about a comment a woman made on the site, "I ended up getting super drunk and sleeping with Dan. I got tested two weeks later and lucky me I found out he gave me chlamydia."

Many websites are protected from such lawsuits by not editing the comments section. Richie has been sued before for comments on the site, and won. Bilzerian says this one's different, because the site posted pics of him with several women next to the comment.

Kelly Rutherford has a problem after declaring she will NOT surrender her kids to her ex-husband ... a court has now ordered her to appear Tuesday ... with the children.

TMZ has learned, a New York judge just made the order at the behest of ex-hubby Daniel Giersch, who claims Kelly is a child abductor who has no right to keep the kids beyond the visitation period which ended last week.

Kelly says she's been to court in L.A. and New York and the judges in both states have said they have no jurisdiction over the case, therefore no one can order her to return the kids.

Giersch begs to differ, claiming he has a custody order that's legally binding on her, so she's now nothing more than a criminal.

The judge has said Kelly needs to be notified by 3 PM today about tomorrow's hearing, but service can be accomplished by email or a secured message to Facebook.