In a case of
mistaken identity, Advocate accounts payable
supervisor Jeff Lee was identified as Judge Lance Ito in
a TMZ.com video.
It was not Judge
Lance Ito -- famous for presiding over the 1995 double
murder trial of O.J. Simpson -- who declared Simpson
“guilty as sin” of current charges
leveled against him to gossip site TMZ.com’s cameras.
Actually it was The Advocate’s own accounts
payable supervisor, Jeff Lee, in attendance at the
magazine’s 40th anniversary party.
Lee was standing
outside the West Hollywood, Calif., restaurant and
lounge Republic Tuesday night, where cameras loomed just
feet away to capture celebrities as they left the
venue. As he and his guest waited for gift bags,
camera operators asked his verdict on Simpson's being
charged with armed robbery, among other crimes, at a Las
Vegas hotel last week.
“At first
I thought they just wanted to take photos of
celebrities,” Lee said Wednesday. “Then
after a while, I thought they were interested in
getting an opinion poll. But then I heard one mention
‘Judge Ito’ and it just clicked
in.”
Lee said he
decided to play along. With the cameras rolling, he
gave his verdict and took to the street.
Wednesday morning
a coworker told him he had been mistakenly
identified as Ito on a just-posted TMZ.com video. The post
was soon taken down after the Los Angeles County
superior court made the error known.
"The video does
not depict Judge Ito," the court said in a statement.
"He is not in the video, and he did not, and has not,
commented in any way to TMZ.com -- or any other media
organization -- about the Las Vegas case or any other
matter relating to O.J. Simpson -- past or present."
Lee himself
e-mailed the site, saying that the incident gave him a
good laugh. He said that aside from an auto-response
e-mail, TMZ did not get back to him. The video has been reinstated, however,
identifying Lee as an Ito look-alike. (The
Advocate)
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