Legal

Johnny Depp is getting support from what some might think is an unlikely group, but maybe not -- an org protecting abused women and children.

The group, Mission NGO, is Italian-based, and fronted by former Miss Italy Valeria Altobelli. She expressed "compassion" for Johnny in the wake of his trial with ex-wife Amber Heard.

Altobelli said, "In deep respect of the victims of domestic abuses that we have to affirm for intellectual honesty are, generally, WOMEN, we feel to express, as women, as mothers, as free thinkers, our compassion for Johnny Depp in this bad page of his personal history."

NGO is not alone ... public sentiment seems to be clearly on Johnny's side, which by clearly means lots of people -- maybe most -- don't believe Amber's claims of abuse at the hands of Johnny.

As we reported, the only uncontested incident of abuse was at the hands of Amber -- she admitted it on an audiotape that the jury heard.

"American Idol" finalist Caleb Kennedy is getting sprung from jail, but he won't be free, as he awaits his fate in his deadly DUI case.

The singer has been locked up in South Carolina since February after he was arrested for felony DUI resulting in death. Cops say Kennedy drove his 2011 Ford pickup truck up someone's driveway, plowing through their garage and killing a man inside.

17-year-old Kennedy had previously been denied bond, but his attorney, Ryan Beasley, tells us he was granted bond at $50k Friday -- and will be held in home detention until his trial.

Beasley tells us Caleb is in good spirits, and hoping to have his day in court where he can prove the DUI was just a tragic accident caused by medication. He's expected to be released sometime today.

Kim Kardashian says her life and the lives of her children are in danger, after receiving scores of letters that threaten their lives and one where the letter writer threatened to blow up her office with a bomb.

Kim's lawyer, Shawn Holley, beelined for court Monday to get a restraining order against David Resendiz, someone Kim says she's never even met. Kim says somehow Resendiz got her home and business addresses and began sending a slew of letters -- more than 80 -- threatening her and her 4 kids in various ways.

In the docs, obtained by TMZ, Kim says Resendiz made numerous false and delusional claims about her intimate relationships. She says he's made "disturbing sexual references about me in his letters."

Kim says he's threatened in multiple letters to kill her. And, she says, on April 25, she received a written bomb threat in a letter delivered to one of her business offices. She says the letter is a dead ringer for the ones Resendiz previously sent.

Kim says she's scared for her safety and the safety of her family. She believes unchecked ... Resendiz could harm or even kill her.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Texas are showing just how desperate some people are to hide drugs, catching a woman who allegedly smuggled fentanyl pills in her vagina.

According to CBP officers working at the Bridge of the Americas border crossing in El Paso, the woman, a 40-year-old American citizen, was intercepted earlier this month trying to smuggle fentanyl pills into the U.S. stuffed inside a condom, which she then hid inside her vaginal cavity.

The agents say a CBP canine alerted officers, who then conducted a pat-down search at the pedestrian crossing ... and officers say the woman then voluntarily removed a condom filled with fentanyl pills from her vaginal cavity.

It appears the actual pills were inside a custom container shaped to fit inside a vagina ... and that container was then wrapped in a condom.

You might be wondering, just how much fentanyl could one woman shove up there ... well, in this case at least, CBP says they recovered 0.006 pounds of the powerful drug.

The bust was one of 25 arrests over the past week at ports of entry in El Paso, which borders Ciudad Juarez in Mexico.

Austin St. John, the actor who played the Red Power Ranger in the 90s TV series, has had his house raided by the feds and he's now under arrest in a massive federal criminal case.

One of St. John's neighbors tells TMZ ... approximately 15 FBI agents in tactical gear rolled up to St. John's home Thursday at 7 AM in Tahoe Suburbans in an upscale neighborhood in McKinney, Texas ... brandishing what looked like AR-15s as they approached his porch.

They entered the home and when they came out they had a plus 1 -- St. John in handcuffs.

Turns out there was a massive federal indictment involving 18 people who have now been charged with fraud. The indictment alleges St. John was part of a scheme to defraud the Small Business Administration's Paycheck Protection Program ... that's the program designed to help small businesses affected by COVID.

St. John allegedly got 16 loans, totaling $3.5 million, which he used for personal purchases and not for the intended purpose. Even if it was used for the intended purpose, the feds claim it was obtained fraudulently.

St. John played Jason Lee Scott in the "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers," which launched his career in 1993. He left the show in its second season but came back from time to time.

BTW ... there are other Power Rangers who got in a legal mess ... Ricardo Medina Jr., who starred in "Power Rangers Wild Force," was convicted of manslaughter in 2017 and sentenced to 6 years for stabbing his roommate with a sword.

As for St. John, if convicted he faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.

Famed filmmaker Len Wiseman is getting court-ordered protection from a man he claims keeps showing up to his home, even once posing as a delivery man and using his outdoor spa.

Kate Beckinsale's ex-husband beelined it to court this week and got a temporary restraining order against a 29-year-old man named Jose Lamas, whom Len claims is getting way too comfortable popping up on his property without an invitation.

According to new legal docs, obtained by TMZ, Len claims Lamas recently showed up unannounced at his Laurel Canyon estate, buzzing the front gate and posing as a Postmates delivery man.

Len says when he told the guy over the intercom to scram, Lamas walked around the property and opened a side gate to the backyard, tried to get inside the home and then stripped down to his boxers and got in the jacuzzi.

Len says the guy stayed in the hot tub for 45 minutes ... leaving only when cops showed up and arrested him.

It sounds crazy ... Len says there's surveillance showing Lamas at his house the day before the spa incident ... adding Lamas has been sending him threats on social media.

Among the alleged messages Lamas sent Len on Instagram ... "you are a stupid a** piece of f****** s***" and "come and get some, I will beat you to a pulp."

Len says the guy even reached out to him a couple days after the jacuzzi incident, sending him this message ... "I am sorry to bother you. I am a stone cold loser and I swear I will never bother you again."

But, Len says Lamas did bother him again ... claiming the guy showed up at his home a third time, rattling the front gate and again trying to gain entry.

Len says when cops arrested Lamas for the jacuzzi romp, the guy told officers he was Len's father and he played basketball for the Lakers.

Attacking Dave Chappelle at the Hollywood Bowl is opening an even bigger can of worms for Isaiah Lee, who's now facing attempted murder charges ... for a separate incident.

The L.A. County D.A.'s Office says Lee stabbed his roommate back in December ... which flew under the radar until Lee made international headlines when he tried to tackle Chappelle earlier this month.

District Attorney George Gascón says, "The publicity generated by the attack on Mr. Chappelle helped police solve this crime."

According to the D.A., Lee stabbed his roommate at a transitional housing apartment -- but the victim wasn't able to identify Lee as his attacker until he saw him in the media reports about the Chappelle incident. The victim had previously reported the attack to cops.

As we reported, the D.A. got a lot of criticism for refusing to charge Lee with a felony for what went down at the Bowl -- the L.A. City Attorney ultimately charged him with 4 misdemeanors.

There's an incredible case before the highest court in New York ... a case in which an animal rights org has filed legal docs asking the judges to give an elephant at the Bronx Zoo the same rights as a person ... to sue over illegal confinement in order to gain freedom.

The elephant in the room -- or in this case the Zoo -- is Happy, who was captured in Asia back in the '70s when she was 1-year old.

A group called the Nonhuman Rights Project has filed a writ of habeas corpus -- a legal move to get the animal out of confinement -- claiming Happy has effectively been imprisoned by the Zoo in a 1-acre facility. The group wants Happy removed from the facility and taken to a more spacious sanctuary.

The NRP claims Happy should be treated as a person in the legal system, arguing the animal is cognitively complex and autonomous ... worthy of protections afforded humans.

The org claims Happy is the first elephant to pass a self-awareness test ... she consistently touched a white "X" on her forehead as she looked in a mirror.

The New York Court of Appeals heard oral arguments yesterday, and the lawyer for the Zoo argued Happy is indeed happy, swimming, foraging and doing stuff elephants like to do.

At least one of the judges was skeptical, asking the lawyer for NRG, "So, does that mean that I couldn't keep a dog? I mean dogs can memorize words." The NRG lawyer shot back, elephants are way more cognitively complex than pooches.

If NRG is successful, it could literally open the gates of zoos in New York and possibly other states ... at least for the smartest animals in such facilities.

Florida rapper Rod Wave is now in the clear, legally speaking, after he was arrested for allegedly choking his girlfriend ... TMZ Hip Hop has learned.

According to legal docs, prosecutors in Osceola County, FL reviewed the May incident, and determined the case wasn't suitable for prosecution.

In the arrest report, Wave's GF accused him of bursting into their home, and choking her until she couldn't breathe because he thought she was talking to other men. The woman, who shares 2 kids with the "SoulFly" rapper, called cops, but Rod had left the scene by the time they arrived.

He was later pulled over and arrested, and even shared a cryptic video of himself surrounded by police cruiser lights.

Three days following the arrest, Rod Wave announced his next album will be entitled "Beautiful Mind." He'll now have plenty of time and freedom to complete and release it!

Billy McFarland, the man behind the infamous Fyre Festival, has been released from prison early ... but he's not completely free just yet.

Billy was sprung on March 30 and was transferred to community confinement. It's unclear whether he's at home or halfway house, but he is expected to stay through the end of August.

As we've reported, Billy originally got hit with a 6-year sentence back in 2018, but he apparently won't be spending all of it behind bars.

You'll recall, Billy organized the notorious 2017 music fest in the Bahamas. He ended up pleading guilty to 2 counts of wire fraud over the disastrous failed event.

If ya need a trip down memory lane ... hundreds of folks were left stranded in the Bahamas, after being promised a weekend-long festival with luxury accommodations, celeb performances and fine dining options.

Of course, that's far from what they got ... settling for tents, a broken down stage and food that included a piece of cheese between slices of bread.

Martin Shkreli is a free man (sorta) -- the guy's been released from prison ... and relatively early considering the length of his original sentence.

The one-time pharmaceutical exec and hedge fund manager -- who was convicted on securities fraud charges back in 2017 -- was sprung from FCI Allenwood Low in Pennsylvania Wednesday ... and will now be transferred to community confinement through the Bureau of Prisons' NY Residential Reentry Management Office.

He was initially sentenced to 7 years in prison after being found guilty on 3 of 8 federal charges pertaining to his reign at the pharmaceutical company Retrophin.

Shkreli was quick to celebrate -- posting a photo of himself on Facebook with the caption, "Getting out of real prison is easier than getting out of Twitter prison."

He seems to be rocking prison wear -- all-gray sweatsuit -- and may have even gotten a ride by some rando. A dude named Edmund Sullivan posted pics with MS, writing ... "Picked up this guy hitchhiking. Says he's famous." Might be a joke, who knows?

Shkreli's lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, says his client will now be living in a halfway house. Brafman adds his client has completed various programs while behind bars to facilitate his early release from prison. He says Shkreli will make no further comment at this time.

Camille Vasquez is staying tight-lipped about speculation that she and her client, Johnny Depp, might be a thing -- but the answer is already out there.

The actor's hotshot attorney was leaving court in Virginia Tuesday with the rest of the team, head up and looking proud of the intense cross-examination of Amber Heard they'd just put on for most of the day ... particularly Camille, who was leading the charge.

A pap was outside and asked what a lot of people have suspected the past several weeks -- namely, the notion she and JD could, perhaps, be dating.

Watch ... she doesn't offer much of an audible response, but her body language is kinda telling -- a nod/smile, it seems. What it's communicating, though, is up for interpretation we suppose ... but, frankly, we already know what's behind curtain #1 on this non-issue.

As we first told you ... Camille and Johnny are not dating, despite all the innuendo and shipping going on among fans ... of which there is a lot, especially online.

For what it's worth ... Amber's shown her attorney some affection as well, but there's no online buzz about anything going on over there.

The alleged Buffalo shooter once detailed a grisly account of beheading a cat -- an incident that left him feeling absolutely nothing at all.

18-year-old Payton Gendron documented the killing in a digital journal entry on Discord -- which was public for a time before being taken down -- in which he describes slicing up a feral gray tabby cat that was apparently attacking his family's own pet cat in their garage.

He goes on to say he spent the next hour chasing it around and stabbing it with a camouflage knife ... until the animal died. Gendron is said to have also logged times on when it went limp, and how it bled from its mouth.

Doesn't sound like the guy was done desecrating the body ... Gendron went on to say he pounded the cat onto the concrete with its tail, and then cut off its head with a hatchet after about 20 hacks -- with blood splattering on his face.

He then wrote, "Honestly right now I don’t feel anything about killing that cat. I thought I would be in pain but I literally just feel blank," adding ... "Well my cat Paige is safe now from that evil feral cat, may you find bliss from consciousness less."

Gendron ended that entry by noting his cat had hung out with him more than anyone in the last few years, and that he hoped his family would care for it when he was "gone."

The family of a 12-year-old boy is suing Apple ... claiming he has permanent hearing loss, after wearing AirPods during an Amber Alert.

The family filed suit Monday ... accusing the company of negligence and fraud, claiming the boy's life has been 'severely altered'.

According to legal docs obtained by TMZ ... Carlos Gordoa and Ariani Reyes claim Apple AirPods ruptured their son's eardrum back in May of 2020, while he was wearing the product and watching Netflix on his phone.

The family says, when an Amber Alert went off, it was so loud it caused tinnitus -- ringing in the ears. They claim he now suffers from dizziness and must wear a hearing aid.

The fam claims the Apple product is defective because it plays alerts at a dangerous level ... no matter what volume the user has chosen.

To take it a step further ... Gordoa and Reyes say Apple had known that the AirPods played extremely loud alerts that did not match the selected volume ... from tons of comments online. They say the complaints date back to 2019.

The hottest ticket in Hollywood is 2,500 miles away ... in Fairfax County, Virginia. It's bigger than the Oscars. Bigger than the Grammys. Bigger than the Emmys. It's Depp vs. Heard.

It's been a madhouse at the courthouse ... when the trial first started, fans started to line up around 5 AM outside the building -- but it's now off the rails with Amber on the stand.

Fans started lining up at 10 PM Sunday for Monday's 9 AM start ... just to get a glimpse of Amber ... causing the Sheriff to post a sign the following day that read, "Effective Immediately the Line for the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard Case Spectators are Not Permitted to Loiter or Camp Out on The Judicial Complex Before 1 AM."

As for the process to score a seat, we're told court officials have about 100 wristbands to dole out -- on a first come first serve basis -- for the main courtroom and an additional 100-150 wristbands for the overflow room ... and still dozens of fans are turned away.

Our sources say there have been screaming matches when people cut the line. And get this ... there's even a black market with folks offering cash for wristbands.

The families of the victims killed in the Buffalo massacre are getting a lot of help in the wake of this tragedy -- both on the crowdfunding front ... but, possibly, on the civil side too.

Fundraisers have been organized in the aftermath of Saturday's mass shooting -- which claimed the lives of 10 people after 18-year-old Payton Gendron opened fire in a supermarket in an attack that was rooted in racial hatred.

One of the campaigns was organized by Keith Blakely, CEO of OnCore Golf Technology, and has already raised around $100k.

Blakely tells TMZ ... the money came in over the course of a few days, with more than 1,400 donors making contributions ranging from $5 to $5k. Blakely says the $100k goal seemed like a tall order at first, but now ... he's aiming to give each family $10,000.

Blakely says he's teamed up with the Mayor's Office to help distribute the money ASAP. He tells us celebs have chipped in, but won't say who ... but he tipped his hand and said athletes have really stepped up.

Other GFMs have been started ... one for the Tops store, another for the slain security guard, yet another for victims' families and a 4th for resource deliveries to victims and members of the community who might be affected.

While all that dough is great, there might be an even larger amount on the horizon thanks to Ben Crump and his team ... he's already been retained by the family of Ruth Whitfield -- one of the oldest victims killed in Saturday's massacre.

Sources tell us Crump is looking to represent as many families as possible ... which we're told may include suing the gun manufacturer of the weapon used in the attack ... an AR-15-style rifle with a high capacity magazine.