What a surprise. The much trumpeted federal investigation into allegations that a former New York Post gossip writer tried to extort a friend of former President Bill Clinton has been quietly dropped.Score one for the little guy. “Freedom Watch” recently received an e-mail from Jared Paul Stern, the now infamous New York Post gossip reporter at the center of the so-called “Page Six scandal,” informing us that “the feds finally admitted [to my lawyer] they have no case.” Clearly breathing sigh of relief, Stern concluded that he “just wanted to thank [“Freedom Watch”] for being the first to point that out.”
The Phoenix, it turned out, was closer to the mark than were the breathless headlines in the New York Times, which broke its page-one, above-the-fold story that Stern supposedly extorted billionaire supermarket mogul Ronald W. Burkle, seeking cash in exchange for favorable coverage. The Times reported the story and quoted allegedly damning surveillance-video tapes provided by Burkle’s security team in such a way that, to casual readers, it seemed as if Stern was not only on his way to indictment for extortion, but that he’d be the taxpayers’ guest at a federal prison before too long.
“Freedom Watch” was skeptical, in part because the Times’s source had turned over “only six heavily edited minutes of roughly three hours of recordings” of Stern in Burkle’s office discussing how Burkle could avoid negative gossip coverage in the Post. In the course of those conversations, Burkle, it seemed, repeatedly tried to trap Stern with legally damning language, only to have each such overture rebuffed by circumspect responses.
We noted that “to anyone experienced in criminal law,” it was “all too obvious” that the tapes were the result of an attempted sting operation that failed. It was a story, we suggested, of collaboration between a businessman, his private henchmen, and the feds, all seeking to indict a somewhat-feared, not-terribly-popular gossip columnist. The stingers failed to trick Stern, we suggested, “but they seem to have succeeded with the Times.”
Stern has finished a first draft of his book on the saga, titled Stern Measures, to be published later this year by Simon & Schuster. Judging by the utter disregard for restraint demonstrated by the feds in their high-tech sting of a lowly twice-a-week gossip reporter, Stern’s book will likely be a harrowing tale of what happens when the Department of Justice makes you a target — not necessarily because you’ve done something illegal, but simply because they don’t like you. Federal criminal statutes are, after all, notoriously broad and vague, and hence the feds can not only indict, but often also convict the proverbial “ham sandwich.” This time the sandwich slipped out of the trap.
