Stalking the gossip beast.

[July 7th, 2004] * The Portland cop-shop grapevine is no stranger to off-duty sexual foibles, but even Police Bureau scuttlebutt veterans are busting a gut at the latest gossip. Officers recently got a tip that a prostitute was in unauthorized possession of bureau paraphernalia. They obtained a warrant and searched her home--where they found not only bureau property but videotapes. Being diligent professionals, the officers promptly viewed the videotapes, only to see one of the Police Bureau's own lieutenants with a woman: They were making, as Shakespeare used to say, "the beast with two backs." Was the lieutenant's partner paid for her efforts, or was it just a piece of pro bono performance art? The bureau's internal-affairs unit is said to be investigating.

* Is Justice blind--or just stupid? It certainly is arbitrary, as Ilya Adamidov can tell you. The manager of the local strip club Union Jack's was thought by the U.S. Department of Justice to be a sinister Russian mobster engaged in a Chicago-based green-card scam--only to later find out that their source for the case, a Serbian undercover informant, was actually a lying con artist who fled for Canada with a quarter-million dollars in ill-begotten loot ("Snitch-slapped," WW, Jan. 22, 2003). Citing the tainted case, the Portland U.S. Attorney's office agreed to let Adamidov plead to a lesser charge; he'd spend no time behind bars. But the Chicago U.S. Attorney 's office had no such qualms and filed its own charges, to which Adamidov recently pleaded guilty. His sentencing is Monday, July 12, and Chicago prosecutor Terry Kinney is asking for 57 to 71 months. "I frankly don't care what they offered him out there [in Portland]," Kinney said.

* Will Oregon voters get the chance to vote for alterna-maverick Ralph Nader in November? Ten days after a tense electoral assembly at Benson High School--which was infiltrated by Republicans and Democrats alike--it remains unclear whether Nader mustered the one thousand signatures needed to appear on the Oregon ballot. So far, the Nader campaign has not given the signatures to local elections officials for verification. "We haven't heard a peep out of them," says Joyce Admire of the Multnomah County Elections Division. Nader folks say they've got the signatures but blame the delay on a paperwork lag at the state elections office, which has been slow to enter newly registered voters into the electoral database.

* Some people say any publicity is good publicity. The Dusky Goose Winery, located in Dundee, will be a test case. On June 7, the new winery sent out an elaborate mailing heralding the inaugural release of Dusky Goose Pinot Noir--and prominently featuring the names and signatures of co-owners Neil and Diana Goldschmidt.

* Then again, Neil Goldschmidt may not have completely left the stage. Although Goldschmidt dropped out of the effort by Texas Pacific Group and Oregon Electric Utility to buy Portland General Electric, a recent letter from TPG boss David Bonderman and Oregon Electric principal Tom Walsh to Erik Sten listed the office of Goldschmidt Imeson Carter, the former governor's consulting firm, as its return address. And on Wednesday, when Bonderman visited The Oregonian's editorial board, Tom Imeson, Goldschmidt's right-hand man and business partner, accompanied him.