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The Portlandian, the Internet's premier source of Tonya News
June 23, 2000 Edition
(C) 2000 Portland Ice Skating Society
http://www.geocities.com/portice
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VINDICTIVE JUDGE WHACKS TONYA WITH JAIL TIME
After several delays, Tonya's court hearing relating to the
incident last February with Darren Silver was finally held on May
18th. Tonya's lawyer had negotiated a plea bargain with the D.A.
that would have seen Tonya doing some community service teaching
underprivileged kids to skate in return for pleading guilty to a
lesser charge of disorderly conduct and 3rd degree malicious
mischief instead of the much more serious domestic violence
charges originally laid against her. It seemed like an
arrangement that everyone - Tonya, the D.A., and even the victim
(Darren having written a note to the Judge asking for leniency) -
was happy with. Unfortunately, this win-win solution was not good
enough for Judge Darvin Zimmerman, who instead appears to have
decided he wanted to make some kind of example out of Tonya
rather than finding a useful way of her serving the community.
Overruling the proposed deal, Judge Zimmerman ordered Tonya to
spend three days in the clink, pay an $822 fine, and substituted
80 hours of community service picking up garbage on the road crew
for the proposed skating lessons, saying "I don't think you're
quite the role model who should be teaching kids". To make
matters worse, Tonya was dragged off in front of a shocked
audience of supporters and media to begin her jail sentence
immediately, without even any time to get her affairs in order
beforehand.
In addition to the above, Judge Zimmerman also ordered Tonya not
to drink alcohol for two years, despite a report from an expert
saying that Tonya was NOT an alcoholic, commenting something to
the effect that "another expert may have come to a different
conclusion" - which makes you wonder just what use there is in
having expert witnesses if their opinions can be so casually
dismissed by a judge who presumably has no expertise in the area
of alcoholism. Reinforcing his apparent contempt for those who
know better than him on medical matters, he also ignored a
statement from Tonya's doctor explaining that her behavior had
been caused by mixing a moderate amount of alcohol with some
prescription drugs that Tonya had taken several hours earlier
(and which she had assumed had by then cleared her system),
rather than excessive drinking as widely reported by the popular
press. Zimmerman then sarcastically dismissed Tonya's apology for
any stress she had caused, making a snide comment about a similar
apology Tonya had offered after the 1994 Kerrigan incident.
We think that Zimmerman's whole handling of this affair is far
from satisfactory. "3rd degree malicious mischief", apparently,
is mainly stuff like spraying graffiti on walls and suchlike, so
essentially Tonya was pleading guilty to throwing a tantrum and
damaging private property rather than assault. Given that the
charge was reduced to something pretty minor, and that the
victim, the DA and Tonya had all worked out a deal - why mess
with it? Even the media gasped when they heard the sentence. In
addition, he compounded things by hauling Tonya off to jail
immediately with no warning, something that would have been a
total shock for Tonya and added to an already stressful
situation. His dismissal of expert testimony from her doctor and
a social worker who did an alcohol evaluation was also
disturbing.
He also overturned the idea of Tonya teaching skating as her
community service. Community service has two purposes; firstly to
rehabilitate the offender and secondly to serve the community
(which is presumably why it's called "community service"). Surely
teaching skating is a much better way for Tonya to serve the
community than picking up trash, something that anyone can do. It
seemed as if he was more interested in humiliating Tonya than in
giving her a useful way to contribute. However, it appears that
her first job - of cleaning up a cemetery - may not be as bad as
expected.
Finally, he made several references to the Kerrigan incident,
which were totally irrelevant and inappropriate. One almost gets
the impression that his attitude was "I think you got off too
lightly over the Kerrigan thing, so I'm going to make up for it
by sending you to jail for this".
SHOCK! HORROR! EXCLUSIVE! - TRASHLOID DOCTORS PHOTOS
Earlier this month, Tonya made her second appearance on CNN's
"Larry King Live". A transcript can be found live on line at:
http://www.oregonlive.com/special/tonya/index.ssf?/news/oregonian
/00/06/lc_41harding07.frame
and:
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0006/06/lkl.00.html
On that show, Tonya showed how the Globe tabloid had deliberately
doctored a photo of Darren's "injuries" to make them look worse
than they really were. Tonya showed two photos taken by the
police at the time of the incident. The first police photo taken
by the officer at the scene of the incident shows Darren with a
cut lip, and another police photo taken the day after shows even
that had largely healed. The "Globe" photo, which must have been
taken later, shows Darren with not only a much worse cut but a
seriously bruised face as well. As a result of this sewer-level
excuse for "journalism", Tonya has now lost a contract with the
Icecapades.
Shortly afterward, Tonya featured on two Internet radio shows at
eyada.com. One was Skybox, on Thursday June 8th, and then on
another called Press Box the following night. Whether this will
lead to a future radio career for Tonya we don't know, but we'd
LOVE to hear Tonya interviewed by another one of Eyada's hosts on
his show "Rotten Radio", which can be found below:
http://www.eyada.com/rotten_index.html
Better Johnny & Tonya than Sid & Nancy!
COURT TV REVIEW AT PUPPETLAND
Puppetboy has a review of an earlier Tonya telecast by Court TV
in April available on his site at:
http://www.puppetland.com/tonya/toncourt.html
This special, which ran for around an hour, was a largely
sympathetic look at Tonya and her turbulent life, despite the
inevitable appearance of Christine Brennan and "Stone Cold" Jeff
Gillooly at various points. It also largely skated over the
hubcap incident, devoting only around 10 seconds to it near the
end of the show, though this may have been because the show
appears to have been prepared quite some time ago with thus
little room for dealing with anything new without a wholesale re-
edit.
By the way, it's odd, isn't it, that Gillooly, who changed his
name to "Stone" a few years ago because he claimed he "didn't
want to be remembered as the guy who tried to fix the Olympics",
keeps turning up on TV in these things all the time. Rather
strange behavior, we think, for a guy who is supposedly trying to
make a fresh start under a new name. Or perhaps he's decided
that with so many IOC members fixing the Olympics instead, his
antics don't seem so bad in comparison now.
Perhaps the highlight of the special was Tonya's father Al
recounting her first encounter with ice when she was small - she
tried to eat it!
GILLOOLY WHACKS NANCY
Not what you think, fortunately.
It appears Tonya isn't the only one having domestic problems.
Associated Press is reporting that Jeff Stone, better known to us
as Jeff Gillooly, was arrested two weeks ago and charged with
assault after an argument with his wife Nancy got out of hand.
Nancy, who was also arrested, had scratches on her back and
chest. Each is accusing the other of starting the fight.
I think we can all see that this incident provides ample evidence
to support Tonya's claims that Gillooly is a piece of violent
wife-bashing garbage and that six years on he hasn't really
changed. We hope that the justice system will see fit to dish out
a similarly stern punishment to the G-man as was given to Tonya
after the incident with Darren (though I won't be holding my
breath).
GATES = GILLOOLY, OR WHO DO YOU WANT TO WHACK TODAY?
If there is any doubt that the Tonya/Nancy incident has become
part of American folklore, it was removed by something we came
across on one site while doing some research on a matter totally
unrelated to Tonya recently:
http://www.os2hq.com/articles/umsmore.htm
There's nothing unusual about the subject of the site - in this
case the growing concern amongst computer geeks with the
disproportionate amount of influence wielded by the Evil Empire
in Redmond over the computing world these days (in much the same
way as we're concerned about the Evil Empire in Colorado Springs
that wields a disproportionate amount of influence in figure
skating - but that's another story). What caught our eye was the
reference to Tonya in one of the articles:
http://www.os2hq.com/articles/ums45.htm
In it, the author compares the often underhanded actions of
Microsoft towards its competitors with the now infamous attempt
by Tonya's ex-husband to get rid of Kerrigan. At least he seems
to be prepared to give the Tonya the benefit of the doubt,
however, which is more than most of the media.
When even computer nerds start talking about Tonya, that must say
something about her impact on raising the profile of skating.
TONYA'S DRESS SOLD, BUT PRINT STILL AVAILABLE
Linda Lewis has informed us that Tonya's skating dress that we
mentioned was on sale in our last issue sold at the end of April.
However, Linda advises us that the silk-screen collage painting
we mentioned in the same issue is still for sale. Despite being
valued at $5000, Tonya is willing to sacrifice it for $2500 and
it comes with a letter of authenticity. Linda has now kindly sent
us a photo of it, which can be viewed at:
http://www.geocities.com/portice/silkscrn.jpg
Linda is also offering a CD that features Tonya and Linda's niece
Shannon singing a song called "When We Shared In Each Other's
Lives", a song written by Linda and her husband Greg. The price
is $15.00 autographed by Tonya, or $10 without the autograph.
TONYA - WARRIOR PRINCESS
Another Tonya fan page has been brought to our attention. Sword's
Tonya Harding page, run by Cheryl Koval, can be found at:
http://www.angelfire.com/wi/swordshardingpage/index.html
The page takes it's name from Cheryl's interest in Lucy Lawless
of "Xena, Warrior Princess" fame. This impresses us, because
quite apart from Lucy being a Kiwi girl, both Xena and Tonya are
two tough chicks with no qualms about kicking some ass when need
be.
ROSENBERG INTERVIEW
Paula Slater, who runs the figure skating section at About.com is
currently interviewing Tonya's former agent, Michael Rosenberg.
http://figureskating.about.com/sports/figureskating/library/inter
views/blinterviews.htm
If you want to ask him anything about Tonya, or skating in
general, now's your chance.
TAKING OUT THE TRASH AT E-BAY
Tired of wading through all the offers of Penthouses and you-
know-what videos when you're searching for Tonya collectables at
E-bay? If you're a "hard core" collector of Tonya merchandise,
we've got good news for you - the links below will take out the
spam (well, most of it, anyway). Just paste these into your
browser's bookmarks file and you'll find most of that garbage is
gone, leaving only the good stuff.
Current Tonya auctions:
http://search-desc.ebay.com/cgi-bin/texis/ebaydesc/results.html?d
est=&cobrandpartner=x&tc=&ht=1&st=0&ebaytag1=ebayreg&ebaytag1code
=0&textonly=n&query=%28Tonya+Harding%29+-"Pamela+Anderson*"+-"Pam
ela+Lee"+-Penthouse+-honeymoon+-wedding+-nude+-naked+-sex&allebay
=1&ebayregioncode=39&SortProperty=MetaEndSort&SortOrder=%5Ba%5D&s
rchdesc=y
Recently completed Tonya auctions:
http://search-completed.ebay.com/cgi-bin/texis/ebaycomplete/resul
ts.html?dest=&cobrandpartner=&ht=1&maxRecordsPerPage=50&query=%28
Tonya+Harding%29+-Pam+-Pamela+-Penthouse+-wedding+-honeymoon+-nud
e+-naked+-sex&SortProperty=MetaEndSort&SortOrder=%5Ba%5D
Of course, if a certain Portland porn dealer, these links won't
be of much use to you...
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VISIT THESE GREAT TONYA WEB SITES:
PortIce - http://www.geocities.com/portice
Dave House - http://www.davidhouse.com/tonya/index.html
Charlie Main - http://www.charliesweb.com/tonya/tonya.html
Puppetboy - http://www.puppetland.com/mirrortony2.html
Valerie Smith - http://www.olywa.net/radu/valerie/LilHam.html
Swan Lake - http://members.tripod.com/~TonyaHarding/index.html
Blades of Gold - http://members.tripod.com/tmhfan/index.html
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