Click here to view the embedded video.

Anyone who remembers Memphis television of the era 1966-1971 will remember Sivad, a Memphis movie publicity man named Davis who discovered fame but not fortune as the host of the Saturday night horror movie on Channel 13, Fantastic Features.

The [...]]]>

A  memory from late sixties Saturday nights on channel 13 in Memphis.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Anyone who remembers Memphis television of the era 1966-1971 will remember Sivad, a Memphis movie publicity man named Davis who discovered fame but not fortune as the host of the Saturday night horror movie on Channel 13, Fantastic Features.

The internet has a startling amount of information about Sivad.  You can read a Memphis Magazine piece on Sivad, a fan page (which reprints a where-are-they-now piece from the Commercial Appeal and has an mp3 of–shudder!–Sivad’s single “Sivad Buries Rock and Roll,” along with other Sivad ephemera), and– here’s a startling tribute to the resourcefulness of obsessed fans– a log of the movies shown on every single Fantastic Features.  I actually looked through that one to get the titles of some B-horror I remember from childhood.

And that’s not all that’s out there on the 38,000 pages Google produces for Sivad.

Between Christmas and New Year, the Government filed an suit stating that Ed Peters had surrendered $425K in cash that remained after taxes and market losses of the [...]]]>

Roberts Wilson has filed a response to the Government’s motion to strike his claim on what remains of the fee Ed Peters was paid for improperly influencing Judge DeLaughter.

Between Christmas and New Year, the Government filed an suit stating that Ed Peters had surrendered $425K in cash that remained after taxes and market losses of the $1M he’d been paid by Dickie Scruggs as a reverse contingent fee.  This was the first public confirmation of what had been rumored (and even reported in the press for a year)– that Ed Peters was cooperating with the government.

It seemed pretty nice of the government to not require him to cough up the full thing, and Wilson makes a point of the inadequate nature of the forfeiture in their response.

Wilson filed a claim against the funds, and the Govrernment moved to strike that response.  Wilson had now filed two pleadings in opposition to the Government’s motion to strike, one a response and the other a memorandum.

The memorandum provides a good thumbnail account of the history of the cases and the scheme to influence DeLaughter, based upon the existing guilty pleas and from Wilson’s perspective.  I don’t really see anything new in the factual allegations.

One interesting new argument is a response to the Government’s argument that Wilson’s claim should fail because he has no judgment.  The memo notes that the Government “does not tell this Court… that Wilson did not file suit to obtain judgment any earlier… because the United States Attorney…asked Wilson to hold the civil claims in abeyance pending the investigation and publication of indictments, if any, against Peters and his co-conspirators.  It is grossly unfair for the government to now argue [this]… when the lack of judgment at this point is due, in part or in whole, to Wilson’s compliance with the request of the government to delay….”