Posted on 07/07/2002 2:51:47 PM PDT by Lorenb420
A year after the Lizzie Grubman saga gripped the Hamptons, the publicity princess has been plagued by a 26-count indictment and slapped with at least a dozen lawsuits totaling $130 million.
The infamous flack - whose next court hearing is July 18 - could wind up in prison if convicted of mowing down 16 people at the Conscience Point Inn and then fleeing the scene.
Prosecutors are mulling a plea deal where Grubman would serve one month of jail time and five years probation.
Here is a list of characters connected to Grubman and where they are a year later.
* Lizzie Grubman
31-year-old owner of Lizzie Grubman Public Relations.
Last July 7, after attending a clam bake at Alex and Alexandra von Furstenberg's Water Mill home, she argued with a bouncer outside Conscience Point Inn in Southampton about a parking space. Returning to her father's black Mercedes SUV, she allegedly yelled, "F - - - you, white trash," and backed the vehicle into 16 bystanders and the club itself. A year later, Grubman, who has spent almost every summer of her life at her father's home on East Hampton's Lily Pond Lane, avoids Long Island's East End like the plague. "I can tell you where she won't be" on the one-year anniversary of the accident, a source close to Grubman said, referring to the Hamptons. After working July 3 - although some have said she has 80 percent fewer clients a year later - Grubman spent the long weekend in her $2 million Upper East Side apartment with her two white yorkies, Peanut and Crunch.
* Conscience Point Inn
1976 N. Sea Road, Southampton, L.I.
The scene of the crime. One year later, it has a new owner, a new "security" system, and new fire lanes outside the front door. "I have never met Lizzie Grubman," says the new owner, scandalized former Morgan Stanley broker Christian Curry, 26. "I think the situation was a tragedy. We've taken many precautions to make sure something like that doesn't happen again. I can't even park in front of the club. Hopefully the people who were injured are not afraid to come back . . . they can come back and drink for free."
* Noah Tepperberg, 26, and Jason Strauss, 28
Former owners of Conscience Point.
They were at the scene of the crime, their 2-year-old club in East Hampton, where to get a table you had to buy a $300 bottle of alcohol, when Grubman lost her cool. Back then, these guys and their place were best known for creating a local phenomenon called the Hilton sisters. Now they can't escape their Grubman infamy. Earlier this year, they sold Conscience Point to Curry. They were at their Southampton home on the anniversary of the now-infamous incident. "A year later we still have no comment," says Tepperberg.
* Scott Conlon
32-year-old former bouncer manning the door at Conscience Point.
He says Grubman yelled the offending remarks at him before slamming her SUV into reverse, the cause for his $21 million lawsuit against her. He was on crutches after the accident, and then in a suit and tie when he testified in court. Recently, Conlon has become a gym teacher and hired a new lawyer, Andrew Siben.
* Andrew Sasson
32, British-born nightclub owner, Grubman's ex-boyfriend.
After the parking-lot incident, Grubman fled the crime scene for Sasson's house in Bridgehampton, where, sources say, he tried to sober her up before she met with cops and lawyers. He later testified to a grand jury that he saw Grubman doing vodka shots hours before the accident. He and Grubman are no longer speaking. He's in Las Vegas, where he opened a new nightclub, Light, in the Bellagio Hotel in February. On the one-year anniversary of the accident, Sasson said, "I won't comment on that at all."
* Dori Cooperman
Close friend and former employee of Grubman.
She was with Grubman in the Mercedes SUV during the accident. A year later, she kicked off another summer in the Hamptons at the Memorial Day party thrown by Hamptons magazine publisher Jason Binn.
* Tara Reid
27, actress, close friend and sometimes client of Grubman.
Reid was hanging out with Grubman the night of the crash. When Grubman went to Conscience Point, Reid was at another club, Jet East. Reid was subpoenaed in the case and is sticking by Grubman. Meanwhile, she is trying to save her tail-spinning film career in L.A. (See this year's flop, "Van Wilder.")
* Casey Johnson
23, Band-Aid heiress, friend and former employee of Grubman.
She was in the VIP room of Conscience Point when the accident occurred. Lately, she says she's sick of New York; she left town for L.A. earlier this year. "I'm much more relaxed now," says Johnson. "I'm still friends with Lizzie, but haven't seen her in a while. I have no desire to go to the Hamptons whatsoever. There are too many people there that I don't know and don't want to know."
* Alex von Furstenburg
Early 30s, financier, son of Diane von Furstenburg and stepson of Barry Diller, friend of Grubman.
He and his wife, the former Alexandra Miller, hosted a clam bake at their house on Flying Point Road the night of the accident. Lizzie hung out there before leaving to go nightclubbing. One year later, on July 5, he hosted an AIDS charity benefit at Andre Balazs' Sunset Beach hotel on Shelter Island and an after-party on his private boat.
* Jessica Meisels
25, employee of Lizzie Grubman P.R.
She was inside Conscience Point on the night of the accident. After, she spoke to the press about the incident, before being instructed not to do so by Grubman's publicist, Howard Rubenstein. She was later called as a witness. Earlier this year, she moved to L.A. to help set up a West Coast office for Grubman. But she spent the July 4 weekend in Southampton and the Friday night anniversary of the accident at a new club, the Star Room.
* Peggy Siegel
40s-ish former co-owner of Lizzie Grubman-Peggy Seigel Public Relations.
Having sold her company to Grubman's father a year earlier, Siegel returned to Southampton on the evening of July 7, after attending the wedding of financier Dixon Boardman and Princess Arianna von Hohenlohe in Marbella, Spain. At 6 the next morning, she was spotted by society scribe David Patrick Columbia outside the Village Cheese Shop on Main Street in Southampton, reading the newspapers. When asked what had happened, Siegel said she had no idea. Five months later, Siegel ended her partnership with Grubman to team up with fashion publicist Harriet Weintraub. This year, Siegel was back in Southampton for the weekend. She didn't return calls about Grubman.
* Jake Spitz
27, one of Grubman's closest friends, he has been working for her since folding his company, Network P.R.
He spent the weekend in question with Grubman last year. This year, he spent the holiday weekend with his family in Pound Ridge, N.Y. "It's hard to see such a good friend go through something so awful," says Spitz. "It makes you change a lot."
* Sarah Thorne
Former group associate publisher of Hamptons magazine.
A Hamptonite year-round, she was hit by Grubman last July 7, suffered broken ribs and was taken away in an ambulance. She recently quit her job and set off on an extended vacation in Greece.
* Jacqueline Powers
Early 30s, daughter of Jerry Powers, publisher of Miami's Ocean Drive magazine, and former nightlife reporter.
After renting a house in East Hampton with a friend last summer, she was rear-ended by Grubman while waiting to get into Conscience Point. Shortly after the accident, she left her job as a senior editor at Maxim magazine in New York to get a masters in history at the University of Miami. She spent the one-year anniversary of the accident in Miami.
* Edward Burke Jr.
37, partner, Burke and Sullivan.
He was summoned from his home in Sag Harbor to Sasson's house in the early morning hours after the incident. The Hamptons attorney is now also representing Danny Pelosi, the local electrician-husband of widow Generosa Ammon. He spent the anniversary at his Hamptons home, hoping Grubman's criminal case could be settled before it is set to go to trial in mid-July.
* Allen Grubman
Lizzie's father, entertainment lawyer to Martha Stewart, Sony, etc. . . .
Last summer, from his house on Lily Pond Lane, he was roused after the accident and rallied the troops immediately. Things got especially dirty for him because he owns the Mercedes SUV his daughter was driving and therefore is involved in the lawsuits surrounding it. However, even after killing a Vanity Fair tell-all about his daughter, he is on the "A" list, even for Vanity Fair's Oscars party earlier this year. He spent the anniversary in a low-key manner in East Hampton, where he is known to have a July 4th barbecue, though not this year.
You can tell a lot about a person's character (or lack thereof) by the kind of dogs they own.
Anyone with a dog whose adult weight is below about 40 pounds is BAD NEWS.
Gosh, you really don't like the Hamptons? That bastion of East Coast liberal chic?
Why, without places like The Hamptons, do you realize how much less cash the DNC would have in their coffers?
Let us hope that she gets her just deserts in civil court. Almost everyone in this story should sue as well as the 21 Million the security guard is seeking, as everyone connected with Grubman seems to have suffered damages.
Seeing how badly she has mis-handled her own public relations, the real shocker in this story is that she has any clients at all!
Clinton was a lot of things, but he was NEVER a "dog owner." I think the consensus around here is pretty much that Clinton discovered through one of his eternal focus groups that having a dog would help his image (which of course eventually becomes his legacy).
The focus groups obviously told him that a lot of people think like I do--that the only REAL dogs are large dogs. So he told some WH flunky "get me one o' them whatever Dick Morris tells ya. And make it fast."
It worked, didn't it? We all remember Clinton's dog, his name "Buddy," etc.
Of course, we also realize that "Buddy" was yet another victim of "Arkancide," when he was no longer needed.
I think they're that way because, deep down inside, they realize that they were bred from REAL dogs to be small and cute, and they resent the h*ll out of it.
It's like "small man syndrome" with claws and teeth, and the added knowledge that someone in the distant past MADE SURE you'd be small on purpose.
That'd be enough to keep ME permanently p*ssed off!
Nobody will ever get 12 people to unanimously agree - either way - on whether it was intentional or an accident. She'll walk on a hung jury.
She'll lose big in the civil suits, though.
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