Beverly Hills Confidential : A Century of Stars, Scandals and Murders

by Schroeder, Barbara

  Ryder, who has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, was convicted of shoplifting $4,760 of designer merchandise. She faced a prison term of three years, but instead was sentenced to three years probation, community service, and counseling. In her first and only interview on the subject, years later in Vogue magazine, Ryder said she didn’t have a sense of guilt about the shoplifting. “Because I hadn’t hurt anyone.” When asked why she stole the items, she blamed her behavior on painkillers given to her by what she called “a quack doctor.” Ryder’s career never did regain the heat it once had, but she’s been working steadily in supporting roles, including one filmed shortly after her conviction. She played a psychologist in a movie called, The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things (2004)

  Ryder “shopped” for merchandise in the Donna Karan section of Saks Fifth Avenue.

  Louvered doors in the Saks dressing rooms helped store security personnel observe Ryder using scissors to remove the anti-theft tags.

  Getting booked for grand theft totalling $4,760 worth of merchandise earned Ryder this memorable mug shot splashed across tabloids.

  2002

  Dr. Laura’s Mom Found Dead • Body Mummified

  It was a white macaw named Sweetie Pie that finally alerted neighbors to the tragedy, not because it was squawking, but rather because it had gone silent. Yolanda Schlessinger (mother of talk-show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger) and the bird were found dead inside her condo in a complex on the 400 block of North Palm Drive. The coroner estimated the seventy-seven-year-old Schlessinger’s body had been laying there for about three months. The coroner’s report reads the victim was found with: “Dried out skin blistering and slippage, skin leathering, mummification of distal extremities. Prominent maggot activity of different stages.”

  Here, for the first time, are details of the mysterious death, and what really happened the day Dr. Laura’s mom died. Clark Fogg was called to the scene around 4 p.m., December 21, 2002.

  We went to the door, noticed a particular odor, and once we got inside, we were overpowered by the smell. It was an odd sight: furniture was turned over in the kitchen and living room, and a bench and chair in the bedroom had been piled up close to the bed. We went to where the odor was strongest, by the bathroom. The door was locked. When we looked down, we saw strands of hair peeking out from under the door; bugs were crawling in and out of the curls.

  The body was blocking the door of the bathroom so we had to utilize a ladder and go around the condo complex to her bathroom window. We removed the screen from the window and made entry into the bathroom. It was quite a sight. Things were piled up in there, too: towels, rugs, a stool. The mirror above the sink was shattered. She was lying on her back. She was nude and her body was in a decomposed state. Bugs were everywhere; it was clear she’d been there for quite a while.

  In addition to the victim, we also found a large exotic bird dead within a very large birdcage in the kitchen.

  Initially, we thought Dr. Laura’s mother’s death may have been a sexual assault or robbery; there was quite a bit of blood around the apartment. We found lots of latent fingerprint compressions in normal positions, but we also found many prints a few inches above the ground on the walls, doors and frames. It was obvious she’d been crawling around the floor.

  At first, the coroner deemed it a murder investigation, but they called a few days later to say that wasn’t the case. The coroner’s office found a ninety percent blockage in her heart: she’d died of a heart attack.

  Our department brought in FBI profilers used to dealing with aging victims. They determined the scene was typical of an elderly person developing a blockage and collapsing. They explained that the victim usually suffers many small strokes, not realizing what is happening to them. Hence, the blood in the kitchen, where she fell and had tried to wipe up the blood with newspaper. As for the furniture being piled up, that’s apparently typical as well; they’re trying to protect themselves.

  Neighbors said they heard things pounding against the wall, but they didn’t want to get involved. She’d thrown something at the bathroom mirror to get attention.

  Detectives called Dr. Laura Schlessinger to let her know what happened; she just said, “What do you want me to do?”

  A cold response, begging the question: What on earth happened between this mother and her famous daughter, especially one known for her opinions on family values? Dr. Laura, (not a trained psychologist, her title comes from a PhD in physiology) told listeners right after her mom’s death, “I’m horrified by the tragic circumstances…and so sad to learn that she died as she chose to live—alone and isolated. My mother shut all of her family out of her life over the years, though we made several futile attempts to stay connected. May God rest her soul.”

  The talk-show host placed all the blame for the estrangement squarely on her mother, who once worked as a receptionist in Dr. Laura’s counseling practice. In an article several years after her mother’s death, Dr. Laura told reporter Chris Ayres of the Times of London, “When it was clear that my career was taking off, I needed her to learn typing. She said, ‘If I’m going to take any class, it’ll be ceramics.’ I said, ‘Well, you can take that, too, but I really need you to take a typing class,’ and she packed her bags and refused to talk to me ever again, no matter what contact we tried to make.”

  Schlessinger added that her family’s issues began long before the estrangement. “My family was not in any way loving: the tension, the anger, the hostility, the dissension, the lack of love and affection, all had its impact.”

  In a People magazine article, Shelley Herman, a television writer who used to work with Dr. Laura, said she remembered Yolanda Schlessinger as a cheerful assistant who was inexplicably cut off by her daughter. “It’s interesting that Laura is always bad-mouthing her mother,” said Herman, “but [Yolanda] never said a word about her to the press.”

  Burial arrangements were handled by Dr. Laura’s younger sister, Cyndi, who also wasn’t close to their mother. (Their mother’s body was in the morgue for ten days before it was claimed.) Yolanda Schlessinger’s marker is engraved with her name, estimated date of death, and one line: “With Heartfelt Regret.”

  During the investigation at the condo, investigators picked up a small radio that had fallen to the ground in the kitchen. “When we plugged it in,” recalls Fogg, “the Dr. Laura show came on.”

  Police found the dead woman’s pet macaw at the bottom of its cage.

  Police found the clock radio on the floor.

  Dr. Laura Schlessinger said the estrangement from her mother dated back to 1986.

  2008

  Model Murders Husband • “Sugar Daddy” Killed

  The videotape from security cameras at the elegant Peninsula hotel, taken on the night of March 14, 2008, shows a beautiful thirty-year-old Bulgarian model, Nora Igova, having dinner with her fifty-one-year-old husband. It would be Jacob “J.P.” Lipson’s last meal.

  A few hours later, police arrived at Igova’s condo on Durant Drive (the couple lived separately). Officers were responding to a 911 call from her neighbors, a sixteen-year-old Beverly Hills High School student and her father. Both had heard noises coming from the model’s apartment shortly after they got home around midnight. The teenager told detectives she heard someone calling out “No, Nora, no!” followed by gunshots, a thump, then more gunshots.

  J.P. was shot seven times, twice in the top of the head. Forensics tests using Luminol (a chemical that detects trace amounts of blood) revealed the shooting began in the bedroom then continued as Jacob crawled towards the front door. He was found shot in the head, lying face down in a pool of blood with his pants and shorts down to his knees, his bare bottom exposed.

  Officers cornered Igova as she was leaving the apartment from a back entrance, headed for the garage where her Lincoln Continental and Cadillac Escalade were parked. Her husband’s Bentley was parked nearby. The wide-eyed, but dry-eyed, Igova told officers emphatically that she d
id not kill her husband. She claimed she was in her bedroom watching a movie, while he was in the living room with a Russian prostitute who took Igova’s gun from the bedroom, shot J.P., then ran out of the building. Igova had no explanation for why she hadn’t called 911.

  Details of the couple’s private life were revealed in court. A successful model in Bulgaria, Nora Igova came to the United States in 1997 and began taking classes at the University of Colorado in Boulder, where she met J.P., a former hog farmer turned restaurant owner, who had children from a previous relationship.

  Their story was not one of wedded bliss. In fact, the two had been living apart for quite a while, but Jacob still supported Igova and paid for her apartment in Beverly Hills. The couple had a history of violence, including another episode involving guns. Igova reportedly showed up at her estranged husband’s new home in La Jolla, a resort town near San Diego. An argument broke out, and she allegedly shot up his home, shattering TVs and mirrors.

  A website called Free Igova states that Igova moved to Beverly Hills to start a new life, and that her husband had attacked her numerous times. A description of her husband says he invested in an adult cable channel and several other businesses, including commodities trading, that produced “multimillion-dollar profits and provided a lavish lifestyle which led to his uncontrollable megalomania, greed, lawsuits, and violent disposition.”

  Igova did not testify at either of her two trials. The first ended with a hung jury; the second ended with a conviction. During the penalty phase of the trial, SWAT officers were brought into the courtroom because of rumors that Igova had ties to the Bulgarian Mafia. She was sentenced (without incident) to forty years to life in prison. Eleanora Iordanova Igova, who never took her husband’s name, maintains her innocence.

  Clark Fogg’s Analysis:

  While our forensics tests showed no gunshot residue was found on the suspect’s hands, we believe she washed the residue off in the master bathroom; a wet towel was documented on the bathroom floor. Also, DNA evidence taken from the weapon matched the suspect’s profile conclusively. In addition, several live ammo cartridges matching the ammo used to kill the victim were found on top of the sheets in the master bedroom where Igova slept—more evidence that convicted the suspect.

  Those who knew him described J.P.Lipson as “smart, aggressive, and greedy.”

  A bloody handprint revealed by CSI latent-blood reagent BlueStar Forensic indicates the victim was crawling away before collapsing on the wood floor.

  Igova pounded on the neighbors’ doors for help. Too terrified to open the door for her after hearing gunshots, the neighbors called the police instead.

  The murder weapon, a 9mm semi-automatic pistol was found in Igova’s lingerie drawer.

  After her arrest, Igova was taken to the police crime lab for examination of blood-spatter evidence and for photo documentation of her clothing.

  2007

  Fashion Designer Anand Jon Sex Scandal • Career in Tatters

  “A pedophile, masquerading as a fashion designer” is how prosecutors described Anand Jon, a thirty-seven-year-old former fashion wunderkind whose spectacular rise to fame in the industry was matched by an equally spectacular fall from grace.

  The hotshot “It boy” dressed celebrities such as Paris Hilton and Paula Abdul. He was featured on television shows, including Oprah, and in 2007, Newsweek magazine placed the Indian-born designer on its exclusive “Who’s Next” list of people to watch. The world was expecting to see great things from Anand Jon. But instead of runways, Jon is now walking down hallways to his prison cell, where he’s spending fifty-nine years to life after several aspiring models came forward to tell lurid tales of rape, sodomy, and innocence lost.

  Jon’s sordid life was exposed shortly before his runway show at L.A.’s Fashion Week in March 2007. Police received a call from a nineteen-year-old woman who said Jon had sexually assaulted her. Officers arrived at the designer’s messy Beverly Hills apartment. Jon showed up a short while later with a sixteen-year-old aspiring model on his arm. He had just taken her out to dinner after flying the teenager in from Connecticut.

  A search of his apartment turned up about a dozen videos that Jon had made of himself having sex with several different girls. Officers also found computer files and lists that revealed Jon often prowled the Internet for victims. He kept detailed accounts of how “easy” the girls were to seduce and how involved their parents were in their daughter’s lives.

  After the news of Anand’s arrest hit the headlines, more accusers emerged, some as young as fourteen. The district attorney’s office filed an amended complaint, adding four more victims and new charges of forcible rape, sexual penetration by a foreign object, sexual exploitation of a child, sexual battery, and forced oral copulation.

  In a Dallas Observer newspaper article, reporter Glenna Whitley detailed one of Jon’s encounters in an exclusive interview with one of his accusers. “Emily,” seventeen, wanted to be a model and posted her information and photos to a website called Models.com. She was thrilled when Jon called, telling her, “I launched Paris Hilton’s career. You could be the next ‘It Girl.’”

  Jon invited Emily to meet him when he flew into her hometown of Dallas for a casting call that turned into a casting couch session. The Observer article details what the young girl experienced.

  “I flew all the way down here to see you and you treat me like this?” the designer said. To be successful in the fashion business, he insisted, she needed to be more experimental and passionate, like his good friend Paris Hilton. The designer poured the teenager a glass of wine. Then he was talking about sex, how it was sacred, once included in religious ceremonies. Before each show, to feel more spiritual, Anand said, he would get a blowjob. Then (as she would later tell the Beverly Hills police), he pulled her onto the bed, kissing her and pawing under her clothes while he unzipped his pants. She tried to push him away but didn’t have the strength. She repeated, “I’m not having sex with you,” over and over. “But it feels so good,” he kept saying. She felt unable to fight him off.

  In court, Jon’s defense was that the sex was consensual, and that the girls all told him they were at least eighteen. He claimed his accusers were bitter and vindictive because he didn’t hire them. Prosecutors described Jon as a serial rapist and played one of his homemade videotapes in court. It shows him asking a seventeen-year-old to strip before sexually abusing her. The girl says on the tape that she’s eighteen, but in court, she testified that Jon told her to lie about her age.

  After a two-month trial, Jon was convicted of sixteen counts of sexual abuse and possession of child pornography, and faced additional charges in New York and Texas. After his first year in prison, Jon wrote a letter to journalist Sharon Waxman of the website The Wrap, proclaiming he was “100% innocent.”

  “I have not seen the sky in months…I’m surrounded in filth…my pencil (I only get two per week) is running out of lead, so I also learn patience. Maybe that’s what it’s all about—taming the ego and revealing love.

  Love and Light,

  Anand Jon

  Clark Fogg’s Analysis:

  When our department executed a search warrant on Anand Jon’s apartment (situated approximately three blocks from the Beverly Hills court building), I observed a large suitcase just inside the front door. The luggage tag had the name and out-of-state address of a female written on it in a young girl’s curlicue handwriting. Jon’s apartment had the appearance of a halfway house. His bedroom had no bed, just a deflated air mattress on the floor with a cotton comforter on top. Next to this “flop bed” he had an HD video camera kit—the tape inside had images of prior victims and his sexual assaults. Those tapes were used as evidence during his multi-count rape trial.

  Anand Jon mingles with client Paris Hilton and Donald Trump.

  A forensic detection method called “RUVIS” (reflected ultraviolet imaging system) revealed various bodily fluids that were documented and presented as evi
dence in court.

  Anand Jon’s served as headquarters, storage and living areas. The night he was arrested, a teenager had just arrived, her luggage was still packed.

  HD video equipment was found next to Jon’s deflated air mattress. Several tapes were broken and forensically repaired.

  2008

  Actor Mark Ruffalo’s Brother Shot • Russian Roulette or Homicide?

  Actor Mark Ruffalo and his kid brother, Scott, grew up in a big, happy Italian family. Their mother, a hairdresser, was no doubt delighted that Scott had followed in her career footsteps; he was a well-known stylist who worked in high-end salons such as Giuseppe Franco in Beverly Hills.

  On December 1, 2008, police were called to Scott Ruffalo’s home on North Palm Drive. A friend had found him on a couch of his condo coughing, gurgling, gasping for air. She immediately called 911. When paramedics arrived, the friend mentioned that Ruffalo had a history of seizures; perhaps that’s what was happening at the moment. But medics quickly realized they were dealing with something far more sinister: a bullet wound to the head. He would not survive the injury. One week later, Scott Ruffalo was taken off life support by his family.