Capt. Hollywood: The ex-LAPD boss who tipped off CBS to Moonves assault claim
A lawyer for former LAPD chief Harry Yee is now claiming Yee himself warned CBS and then-CBS chief Les Moonves in a Jan. 5 email about the impending CBS-ABC confrontation. CBS and the other companies sued the movie studio mogul, accusing him of assaulting Moonves in a hotel room Jan. 6.
In a filing submitted Wednesday, attorney Mark Geragos said that early on Jan. 5, he exchanged an email with Yee about the media war. Geragos said he later saw Yee in a closed meeting at his law firm where Yee said he had an email from Yee on his laptop.
“He said, ‘I’m going to fight you, I’m going to beat you like you beat me,’ ” Geragos said.
CBS and ABC reached out to Yee, Geragos said. He said Yee sent the ex-cop a message Jan. 4 asking him to call to say it was all fixed, or he wouldn’t talk to them.
It was at that point Geragos said he decided he had to speak up.
“So I called Les, and I said, ‘Look, I think you’re under a lot of stress. There’s an enormous amount of animosity here.’ I said, ‘It’s not just the press. It’s the fact that you’re on top of the world. You’re the best man left, you’re the last vestige of the LAPD.’ I said, ‘You know, if you don’t talk to us, we’re going to go to CBS. I don’t know if Les Moonves is going to talk to us or not, he had a really tough evening.’ And he said, ‘I’ll call you back,’ ” Geragos said.
On Jan. 6, Geragos said, Yee called, saying he was calling from a Los Angeles hotel room to see him. He said he told Geragos that Moonves, who was out of town on personal business, was having a meeting with CBS’s Leslie Moonves at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Geragos said Moonves, according to Yee, asked for Yee’s advice about negotiations for Moonves’ next TV job, and Yee said it had to be CBS.
“He said he had an emergency situation and would call me
