Russell Crowe to pay off hotel clerk... (1 Viewer)

[todd s]

According to a British newspaper Crowe is supposedly going to settle with the hotel clerk who he threw a phone at for 11 million dollars! In return he will drop all charges and not discuss it with the media. Now, don't get me wrong. I am not defending Crow. But, a 11 million dollars. Thats insane!

 

[Patrick_S]

Apparently if he was found guilty he was looking at some real time.

I guess Crowe's people ran the numbers and decided it was in his best interest to stay out of jail.

 

[todd s]

I know. But, to make someone a multi-millionaire for it..just seems nuts.

 

[Marc Colella]

When celebrities are in town, I really should stay close to them in case they decide to flip-out on someone.

11 million for having a phone thrown at me?
For that amount, throw a Buick at me.

 

[PhillJones]

I wish Russel Crowe would throw a phone at me.

 

[Nigel McN]

It wasn't so much the time, it was the criminal record, which means no more coming to the US.

 

[Matt Stryker]

Ok, maybe I completely slept thru my criminal law class in high school, but isn't "settling" a criminal case out of court kinda extra-legal? I know that civil suits are often settled that way, but I thought once he had brought charges, they were in the hands of the DA.

Someone straighten me out on this. Otherwise, it would seem that you could just bribe your way out of any offense against another person, which seems to be exactly what Crowe is doing.

 

[Michael Reuben]

That's certainly a permissible interpretation. But it doesn't apply across the boards. Sometimes the case doesn't depend on a complainant (e.g., a murder). Sometimes the prosecutor decides to proceed anyway (assuming there's enough independent evidence).

M.

 

[Paul McElligott]

Fortunately this would not work very well with murder.

"I am confident, your honor, that the victim would have accepted the money if he weren't already dead."

 

[Ken Chan]

There are two sides to consider: compensation for the plaintiff, and punishing the offender to dissuade him from doing it again. Unfortunately, these two sides are often not in sync. I dunno how much 11 million is to Crowe (if it's all coming out of his pocket), and clearly it seems like too much for getting hit with a phone (as long as the guy didn't lose an eye or something). On the flip side, if you get wronged by some poor shmuck, there's no compensation to get.

It might be more fair to punish the offender according to his means, and compensate the plaintiff according to the injury. In cases like this, the extra money would go in a pool to cover the reverse cases. But this setup would be virtually impossible to administer fairly (we can't even agree on the #1 college football team), so it's a nonstarter.

 

[Hunter P]

Amen, brotha. Hell, I might even follow around local celebs for smaller payouts. $100k from the local news anchor pimp slapping me for taking his parking spot. Yes, please!

Crowe probably offered something standard like $50k initially. But RC ended up shelling out $11 mil. That clerk had a good lawyer negotiating for him. He would never earn that much in his lifetime so how can he justify that amount? Just goes to show how badly Crowe wanted to put this under the rug.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Geez, was Russell in another state than the clerk when he did this? Perhaps it was a long distance phone toss.

 

[Dave Mack]

Interesting story,

several years back, I think in early 2001, Crowe came in to the gym I used to work in on east 34th st. in manhattan to play squash. It was a non-chain, low key place, (which he obviously wanted) called Athletic Complex and he sent his ladyfriend is first to see if we had a court. She was very amazonian. She was told yes and she went out and I left a minute later and missed Crowe. But the guy behind the desk, "Stu" actually said to him in all seriousness, "Hey, y'know you kinda look like Russell Crowe!" (Stu was a bit of an airhead.) From all accounts, the look Crowe gave him was priceless. Stu's lucky he didn't have a phone or even a treadmill hurled at him.

Ah well, I missed this gem of a story firsthand by 10 seconds....

d

 

[Haggai]

IMDB now says that it's going be a $100,000 settlement:

 

[Paul McElligott]

Only $100,000?! Damn! Now it's not worth having Crowe throw anything at me.

 

[Haggai]

Maybe a second-time offense would allow you to jack up the asking price.