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June 5, 2006updated 22 Nov 2022 7:38pm

Gossip column editor spends night in the slammer

By Press Gazette

The New York Post's Page Six has been making headlines again.
Earlier this year, gossip writer Jared Paul Stern was accused of trying
to extort money from a billionaire to ensure he was portrayed in a
favourable light in the gossip column.

This time it's the gossip
column's editor Richard Johnson who is making the news. On his way home
he was stopped, in the early hours, by a New York police patrol who spotted
him using his cell phone while driving.

In New York, as in many
other places these days, that's an offence. Asked to take a
breathalyzer test, because his speech it was suspected was slurred, in
what he now admits was dubious judgment, he refused.

The cops
slapped on handcuffs and took him to the local precinct. There he was
made to walk the line. Afterwards, (and its all on tape the New York Police
say), he was taken to The Tombs, the notorious New York prison, where
he was held overnight in a small cell along with other suspected felons.

He
was held for 12 hours, and after a breakfast of cornflakes and what he
described as stale peanut butter sandwiches he was arraigned on a
charge of drunken driving. Apart from the food he had no other
complaints.

The police behaved he said very professionally. He
was freed without bail – after his lawyer has assured he is no flight
risk and would appear in court when ordered. .. Unfazed, the New York Post
ran the story under the headline Page Six Spends Night Inside.

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