Haunted by cast ‘curse’
Tax subpoena OK for DA, not Congress
Naya Rivera’s
(1) apparent drowning would be the latest in a string of tragedies and traumas associated with “Glee.” Here’s a rundown on four others hit by the “‘Glee’ curse”:
Mark Salling
(2) The actor, who played Noah “Puck” Puckerman, pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography in 2017.
According to authorities, Salling purposefully downloaded thousands of illicit images over eight months in 2015. He was arrested in December of that year.
In 2016, a woman accused Salling of forcing her to have sex with him at a hotel four years earlier.
The Los Angeles County district attorney chose to not charge him with rape, citing a delay in reporting the alleged attack, as well as insufficient evidence.
A month after his guilty plea in 2018, Salling died by suicide at age 35.
Cory Monteith
(3) The actor, who portrayed Finn Hudson, died at age 31 from an accidental drug and alcohol overdose in 2013.
Monteith, who was co-star Lea Michele’s on-screen and real-life boyfriend at the time, had been open about his struggles with addiction.
The British Columbia Coroners Service, which ruled the death accidental, said investigators found a spoon with drug residue and a used hypodermic needle in the Vancouver hotel room where his body was found.
Monteith’s death was written into the show that year in an episode titled “The Quarterback.”
Lea Michele
(4) The actress, who played Rachel Berry, has come under attack by co-star Samantha Marie Ware, 28, who accused Michele, 33, last month of making her time on the show “a living hell.”
Other cast members backed Ware, with Heather Morris (Brittany) calling Michele “very much unpleasant” to work with. Michele apologized for her behavior, but lost a sponsorship with HelloFresh over the accusations.
The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled a New York grand jury can subpoena President Trump’s tax returns and financial records, but blocked a similar request from congressional investigators, sending both decisions back to lower courts and keeping the records under wraps for the foreseeable future.
In two 7-2 verdicts, the justices said the president was not immune from subpoenas and criminal investigations but ruled an investigation from Democratic-led House committees was too broad, and that it claimed limitless powers to pry into Trump’s financial dealings that the committees do not have.
“The President is neither absolutely immune from state criminal subpoenas seeking his private papers nor entitled to a heightened standard of need,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion in the first ruling.
The historic ruling will allow Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. to have a grand jury subpoena eight years of the president’s tax returns that Trump has fought to keep private since he entered public office.
However, such a subpoena will have to be ruled on by the US District Court in Washington, DC, and, even if it is issued, the records likely would not be made public before the November presidential election, providing something of a victory to Trump even in defeat.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito were the dissenting votes in each 7-2 ruling.
The Supreme Court also dismissed subpoenas from Congress seeking the financial records and tax returns of the president and his family, arguing it was an overreach and threatened the separation of powers. That case has also been sent back to the US District Court in DC.
“The House’s approach would leave essentially no limits on the congressional power to subpoena the President’s personal records,” Roberts wrote, arguing that the subpoenas “lacked a legitimate legislative process.”
“These separation of powers concerns are unmistakably implicated by the subpoenas here, which represent not a run-of-themill legislative effort but rather a clash between rival branches of government over records of intense political interest for all involved,” he continued.
The president railed against the decisions, tweeting that New York was “politically corrupt” and that the decision was “not fair” to his presidency or administration.
Vance’s office last September subpoenaed Trump’s longtime accounting company, Mazars USA, for eight years of his financial records and tax returns as part of an investigation into whether he paid hush money before the 2016 election to several women with whom he allegedly had affairs.
The payments would be a potential violation of campaign finance laws.
Trump’s personal attorney Jay Sekulow, who argued the case, welcomed the decision temporarily blocking release of the records and said they would continue fighting the matter in the lower courts.
Vance said he was also pleased with the decision, which affirmed the president is not “above the law.”