It’s no wonder the Italian businessmen claimed George Clooney was behind their fashion line — the actor knows how to wow an audience whether he’s on the red carpet or the witness stand.
Maintaining his trademark aura of cool, Clooney delivered a few wisecracks on Friday as he testified against three defendants accused of co-opting his name with the goal of launching a fashion line.
The appearance of the star, who maintains a villa on nearby Lake Como, sent the normally staid courthouse into full celebrity tilt. Clooney had to push his way through a wall of cameras into the courtroom, saying scusa, scusa, — “excuse me” in Italian — and warning “Don’t crush my lawyers.”
Throngs of fans packed the tiny courtroom. The judge repeatedly told spectators to be quiet and tossed out one woman who snapped a photo of Clooney.
The 49-year-old actor wore a navy blue suit, crisp white shirt and red-spotted blue tie as he addressed the court through an interpreter, throwing in occasional words in Italian and apologizing for his lack of fluency. He testified that photos that purported to show him with two of the defendants were doctored and signatures on documents also were forged.
Only one defendant — Vincenzo Cannalire — attended the trial. Clooney turned to greet him after recognizing the man from of the photos he was looking at.
“This is the first time I’ve ever seen him,” Clooney said, motioning to the defendant.
Then with just a trace of irony, Clooney added, “So I’d like to say hello, nice to meet you.”
Two others also charged with criminal fraud in the case are Vanja Goffi and Francesco Galdelli.
Clooney said one photo purporting to show him with Goffi was instead doctored from a photo of Clooney and an ex-girlfriend in real life. Examining other photos, Clooney explained why he was not the man in one particular picture.
“Here, for instance. I don’t smoke and I don’t wear that watch,” Clooney said.
Then after a pause he added: “I also don’t wear long jean shorts.”
The signatures on the many documents he examined either were forged or photo copies of his signature, Clooney said, at one point acknowledging “this is my signature, but I didn’t sign it.”
The actor noted that just two versions of the photocopied signature were used. Clooney testified that the case dated to 2006, when he received a letter from Rolex telling him to stop wearing one of their watches in public.
“I didn’t know what was going on,” said Clooney, who is a spokesman for Omega.
He added that he realized that someone was using his image to sell Rolex watches. Later, the actor and his employees noticed articles saying he had put out a clothing line in Italy, which he said was not true. Clooney then hired Italian lawyers to resolve the situation.
After his 90-minute testimony, Judge Pietro Caccialanza thanked Clooney, wryly noting that the session “has lasted as long as a movie.”
“They are taking advantage of a lot of people,” Clooney told reporters as he left. “It seems the justice system is the only way to deal with it.”
CONDITIONS: The Russian president said a deal that was scuppered by ‘elites’ in the US and Europe should be revived, as Ukraine was generally satisfied with it Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday said that he was ready for talks with Ukraine, after having previously rebuffed the idea of negotiations while Kyiv’s offensive into the Kursk region was ongoing. Ukraine last month launched a cross-border incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, sending thousands of troops across the border and seizing several villages. Putin said shortly after there could be no talk of negotiations. Speaking at a question and answer session at Russia’s Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said that Russia was ready for talks, but on the basis of an aborted deal between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s negotiators reached in Istanbul, Turkey,
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
A French woman whose husband has admitted to enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her while she was drugged on Thursday told his trial that police had saved her life by uncovering the crimes. “The police saved my life by investigating Mister Pelicot’s computer,” Gisele Pelicot told the court in the southern city of Avignon, referring to her husband — one of 51 of her alleged abusers on trial — by only his surname. Speaking for the first time since the extraordinary trial began on Monday, Gisele Pelicot, now 71, revealed her emotion in almost 90 minutes of testimony, recounting her mysterious