Abdul Karim Khanu, the owner of controversial-now-defunct District nightclubs, had been indicted in U.S. District Court on conspiracy and tax evasion charges. Khanu, who currently resides in the sweet Potomac suburb, operated DC Live, Platinum and other night clubs. In late 1999, his company Abdul Productions II, Inc. he opened Platinum. Under a haze of allegations, Platinum closed in June 2008. Khanu also owned H20 on the Southwest waterfront which closed this month.

Now, it appears Khanu is in some very hot water with federal authorities. I think you can read the complaint here.

Read More "DC Live/Platinum/VIP Club Owner Indicted On Tax Charges" »

I understand that every publication on the interwebs is trying to crack the whole 'monetizing' nut, but these scrollovers really take things too far.

Take Slate. This a.m., I stole three minutes from actual work to read up on the essentials—you know, my daily dose of counterintuitive rhetorical questions and columns on the best way to break one's leg. Before I could click through to a piece on "why you should let your kid suck his thumb" or a Jack Shafer column asking, "prithee, does we need newspapers?" a ginormous Volkswagen ad swooped in, flashing sleek images of a black sedan and dropping catchphrases like "ART GALLERY QUALITY INTERIOR" and "POSITIVELY OOZES CLASS." Yum! Before I knew it, I had accidentally clicked on an article asking whether socialized medicine had killed Natasha Richardson. I did not read this article.

Read More "Scroll Over, Beethoven" »

The Post reported today that a report by Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies has pointed out several obvious flaws with the inauguration. The report: "pointed to insufficient signs, poor coordination among law enforcement agencies and a lack of personnel to keep order and provide information to visitors." By now everyone who attended the inauguration or who read about the Purple Tunnel of Doom knows the screw-ups. The only thing left of out of the report is a mention of Dionne Warwick's ball flap.

In the report's executive summary, under "crowd management," it does point out a few major gaffes. Crowds were not only huge, they arrived before police officers got to their posts, the report states, adding that ticket holders and non-ticket holders ended up fighting for spots at the same gates. In other areas medium security fencing was either moved or trampled over. The report notes that in the Silver Section, the "snow" fencing had been trampled. In other spots, bike-rack fencing was simply moved.

Read More "Report Cites Obvious Problems With Inauguration" »

DCist notes that the White House has decided to pass out tickets to its Easter Egg Roll online. Why is this news? Oh yeah, people give a shit and used to wait in line like all night for the chance to celebrate Easter on the White House lawn. DCist writes:

"A press release from the White House cited a desire for "more children and families from across the United States (to) have the opportunity to experience this event" as a reason for the ticketing change."

Does the White House honestly think people will travel from all over the country just to "experience this event?" Who the hell has the money? It looks like those novelty eggs don't fetch too much on eBay. A George and Laura collectible from 2003 is currently bidding at $16.50. That's like less than a dinner for two at Applebee's.

Then again this egg rolling thing has been around a long time. I'm sure half the tickets will end up on Craigslist.

This morning, LL was all over Fenty's announced District gov job cuts. Our aggressive political scribe reported: "Of the remaining 776 employees the mayor is proposing to lay off, 250 are in DCPS—mostly teachers aides and support staff, Tangherlini says." This may not seem like scary news, but it is.

I know what your thinking: teachers aides and support staff seem like easy cuts. What the hell do teacher aides do? What does support staff mean? Let me guess what they do: they help handle over-crowded classrooms, offer tutoring, lesson planning and generally help teachers get through the day. I'm not sure about support staff. But it could mean social workers, guidance counselors, secretaries, and librarians.

Do we really want to cut funding for these jobs? These cuts are coming on the heels of all those school closures last year. Catania made the argument today on the Politics Hour that enrollment is down at DCPS and that more and more kids are going into charter schools. But for every successful charter school, there are stories like City Lights Public Charter which recently had to close its doors before the school year even finished.

Read More "Fenty’s Proposed Layoffs Should Avoid DCPS" »

On WAMU's politics hour, At-Large Councilmember David Catania just said that 36 percent---I think my ears are hearing that correctly---of 6th grade males report that they are engaging in some kind of sex.

Is this shocking? Or have boys learned at a very young age the art of lying about sex?

Yesterday, we blogged up D.C. Police Officer Robert Schmidt's arrest on solicitation charges. The cop was arrested on February 20 after trying to buy sex from an undercover cop at a downtown hotel. We just got a little bit of the court record on this case. The details are very smooth. According to a police officer's narrative of events, the prostitution enforcement unit used Craigslist's "erotic section to post ads utilizing two female undercover (UC) officers posing as prostitutes."

The unit then pre-wired a room for video and audio at the Embassy Suites downtown. This is what they recorded between the undercover cop and Schmidt:

U/C: "How you doing?"

Schmidt: "I'm good. This is a really nice room."

U/C: "I'm glad you like it. So, What do you do for a living?"

Schmidt: "I work with the government."

U/C: "How cool is that!!! So, what you want?"

Schmidt: "Half hour."

U/C: "That's going to be $80.00. $80.000 for sex right."

Schmidt: "Well, I'll do a little of licking. Do you like that?"

Read More "D.C. Cop: ‘Well, I’ll Do A Little Of Licking. Do You Like That?’" »

Mayor Fenty talked to WTOP about the controversy over his recent trip to Dubai. I'm sure LL will have a smart take on this. I'm just semi-shocked that Fenty claims to have no regrets over that trek in which the United Arab Emirates government shelled out $25,000 to the mayor. And he attended that tennis tournament in which an Israeli female player was barred. And when confronted about the trip, he claimed to have always wanted to go to Dubai.

Even more shocking, Fenty plans to keep his future trips secret:

"The mayor says while he does have more out-of-town trips planned, he will not release any details of those trips until after he returns -- and only if required by law to do so.

'I'm not going to tell you,' Fenty tells WTOP."

So much for transparency. Is this the kind of BS other big city mayor's get themselves into? This controversy has been going on for weeks. Shouldn't this tell us something about how Fenty handles his own screwups? How much longer will it take for Fenty to actually give a straight answer on this? LL asked Fenty about these issues some days ago and got some similiar stonewalling.

As everyone who reads LL Daily knows, the Washington Post reported that a D.C. Police officer was busted for soliciting SEX from a prostitute last month. (This is not shocking. Have you seen some of our cops?).  Officer Robert A. Schmidt was busted in a downtown hotel as part of an internet-sting operation run by his own department's anti-prostitution unit.

The Post writes:

His meeting with Officer Madeline Collado, who was posing as a prostitute, took place Feb. 20, just after 5 p.m., in a fifth-floor room at the Embassy Suites hotel near 10th and K streets NW, according to an affidavit filed by police in D.C. Superior Court. The document quotes their conversation in a room wired for sound and video.

"So, what do you do for a living?" Collado asked him, after the two had exchanged pleasantries.

"I work with the government," Schmidt said, to which Collado replied, "How cool is that!"

Here, Schmidt proves himself not too swift. Collado's how-cool-is-that response should have been a dead give away that she's full of it. No one, not even real sex workers could bluff that well. Schmidt doesn't walk out of the room. Instead, he agrees to pay the $80 for a half hour of lovemaking.

For his bust, Schmidt just had to complete a stint at the John's School. His charges have been dismissed. The department is now investigating Schmidt.

But guess what Schmidt's doing in the meantime?

Read More "Is This What You Call Community Policing?" »

DCist is reporting that Mocha Hut has closed. We agree with the bloggers that its brunch was super awesome and relatively cheap. It literally was one of two decent options in the corridor. It was always Mocha Hut or Busboys and Poets for brunch. This will surely mean the lines at Busboys will be that much longer.  I wonder why they went out of business considering that the U Street coffee shop always seemed busy (at least on weekends). DCist writes:

"A notice posted on the door this morning reads simply, "Mocha Hut is closed. We sincerely thank you for all of our support," and is ironically posted only a few feet away from a plea for votes in the Washington City Paper's Best of D.C. awards."

Sad.

The Washington Business Journal reports that another coffee shop will be taking Mocha Hut's place. But what are the odds that its egg specials will be as tasty and as cheap?

There is a man down on the landing of our parking garage. He has wedged himself between a foot-high concrete wall, the cigarette urn, and the second floor door. It's a small space, barely room enough for his small frame. I do not notice this man.

Our beloved photographer, Darrow Montgomery, who just biked past him, points him out.

I ask him what's wrong. He says he has asthma, that he needs help. His voice is hoarse. Another man shows up. I will learn later that this man works at Payless. The man on the ground apparently has stolen a black purse.

The Payless man tells the other man to wait---the police have been called.

The man then walks as fast as he can up to our parking deck. He then makes like he wants to jump off the deck. He mumbles about wanting to kill himself, that life isn't worth living.

He is grabbed. We get him to sit down. His name is Thomas.

I leave Darrow and the Payless employee to keep the man occupied. I run inside WCP and call the Department of Mental Health's mobile crisis unit. This is where things get annoying.

Read More "Emergency @ Washington City Paper Headquarters" »

Orange Hat Patrols are out. Blogger patrols are in. Borderstan has announced that it will be hosting the "Borderstan Night-Safety Walk Around" this Thursday with plenty of law enforcement types on hand: "Join police and city government staff for a quick walk around Borderstan. The purpose is to point out dark areas that need lighting, burned out street lights, overgrown trees, etc. The goal is to improve night safety in Borderstan through better lighting and visibility."

Walk starts at 6. "The group will leave 15th and T NW at 6 p.m. and proceed south," the blog notes.

Last Monday, At-Large Councilmember Phil Mendelson held one of his Judiciary Committee's oversight hearings on the D.C. Police Department. For the most part, the hearing was routine: right down to the councilmember asking for the investigative materials related to the DeOnte Rawlings shootings. By Mendo's own count, he has asked for the Rawlings report at least three times.

At Monday's hearing, D.C.Police Chief Cathy Lanier and her top brass assured Mendelson that he would have the Rawlings case report on his desk very soon. The expection was for a Friday deadline. In an editorial the day of the deadline, the Post urged the police department to release more information about shootings--including the details on the recent police shooting death of a bus driver. We'd like the records behind the David Kerstetter shooting on November 6. And the Osman Abdullahi shooting in late February. The Post sort of piggybacked on David Simon's own editorial in its newspaper a few weeks ago.

So is it shocking that on Friday, the D.C. Police failed to give Mendelson the DeOnte Rawlings report? Of course not. This is what the department does with such things.

"I think that's still at the factory for redactions," Mendelson joked during a phone interview. It was 5 p.m. on Friday. "This is at least the third time I've asked for the D. Rawlings report."

Read More "D.C. Police Stonewalls Mendo On Police Shootings" »

I post this on behalf of Lola Lombard, the blonde on the left, who is looking for the blonde on the right in this photo.

Writes Lola to the blonde:
Dear Mystery Blonde,
You took my photo at the amazing Art of Change Inaugural Ball. I hand-painted my dress just for that night. It created quite a stir, it even made the news on two continents and your photos were the best! Now everyone is asking for photos and I cant find you. Oh where have you gone, Talented One? Dont let this be a "snap and run".
Lola Lombard

On March 4, testimony got heated at the Fire Department's oversight hearing. After Dennis L. Rubin testified before Councilmember Phil Mendelson's Judiciary Committee, Firefighter Chris Sullivan took his turn at the witness table.

Mendo asked Rubin to remain in the room so he could hear Sullivan's testimony. Rubin complied. He then proceeded to take a verbal beat down.

Sullivan ran down his personnel file for the better part of six minutes. His testimony mirrors that of a lot of other firefighters. There are scores of firefighters who are seething over Rubin's handling of personnel issues. This is one of those cases. Sullivan claims that he was wrongly charged with going AWOL in April of 2008. He went on to say that he was found not guilty.

This led to other charges. A stint on administrative leave with pay and details out of his firehouse. And more in-fighting all over very minor charges it seems. But then as Sullivan concluded his testimony, he turned to Rubin and other fire department officials and went off.

Read More "Fire Chief Rubin Taunted At Hearing" »