People in the News for June 8, 1998

Monday, June 8, 1998 | 10:51 a.m.

"It's a case that really re-rears ugly heads," says Ivana Trump's lawyer. Thank God it's not the other way around! The socialite ex-wife of Donald Trump is trying to get out of paying the private investigator she hired to spy on her then-husband and the woman he was stepping out with, Marla Maples. The bill submitted by private gumshoe James Mintz in 1990: $250,000 -- now up to $400,000 with interest, for which Mintz is suing Ms. Trump. Ivana claims he overcharged her and violated a $100,000 cap on surveillance charges. Lawyers on both sides have been trying to knit together a settlement -- should the suit go to court this summer as scheduled, it could reveal embarrassing details of the Trumps' acrimonious 1990 split. Juicy financial details! Donald's adulterous follies! Leave it to a killjoy lawyer to seek to deny us such fun. "This is something I'd love to settle," says Ivana's attorney, Gary Lyman. But his client is holding the line, insisting Mintz is trying to shake her down. Says Lyman, "She thinks people see a deep pocket and they go for the jugular." And everyone knows the best way to a woman's pocket is through her jugular.

Odds and ends, mostly odds

Talk about the re-rearing of ugly heads! Ted Kennedy, during a "60 Minutes" interview -- not everybody wants those hairy little things -- said Sunday he still feels responsible for Chappaquiddick. "That will remain with me for my whole life," the Democratic senator from Massachusetts intoned. In July 1969, Kennedy, returning from a party, drove off a bridge, killing passenger Mary Jo Kopechne. He reported the accident a suspicion-inducing 10 hours later, attributing the delay to his distraught condition. This is something he'd love to settle, but he can't. "I've indicated before, you know, that I've accepted responsibility for it. That doesn't change now. (That) won't change in the future and it's something that I have to just live with." Indeed. At times like this, even trite food analogies fail us.

Compiled by Scott Dickensheets