RadarOnline Publishes Broken-Tooth Photo of Oksana Grigorieva

Terrible.

The photograph is part of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department investigation into the actor for domestic violence.

It’s also included in Oksana’s declaration to the court in the estranged couple’s vicious custody battle over their eight-month-old daughter Lucia.

The image shows the damage to the Russian-born musician’s front teeth after the couple’s brutal blowout at Mel’s Malibu mansion on January 6.

Oksana has told police that Mel punched her in the face while she held their infant daughter Lucia and that the force of his blows broke her teeth and left her with a concussion, RadarOnline.com has learned exclusively.

...

“Oksana lost a veneer and the right front tooth was severely chipped,” said a source, familiar with the law enforcement investigation.

Gibson's camp issued a statement that she hadn't suffered injuries or broken teeth, but that doesn't seem accurate.

Yeah, as they keep saying, Mel's career is the least of his worries. He will likely go to jail for six months or a year.

TMZ: Oksana's Own Dentist Cries "Fake." Actually he doesn't say that at all, though TMZ cries that to get some attention.

What he claims is that he believes she was struck in the temple, not the mouth, and she reacted by biting down hard, breaking her own teeth.

But TMZ is representing him as casting doubt on how she received her injuries -- well, sort of, but not really. He says the teeth were broken in a "chain reaction" injury (hit, then bite), but he's not really undermining the claim that Oksana was hit, and that this hit, whether directly or indirectly, broke her teeth.

Extortion? So claims TMZ.

Except it's probably not really extortion -- the law of extortion specifically excludes from the offense threats (and attempts to get money) that are connected to a real, legally recognizable complaint.

That is to say, if you could sue someone for failure to pay for your services, you could threaten, in an effort to get your money, putting out the word that he's a deadbeat, which would damage his reputation and all, but the law wouldn't call that blackmail. (In most cases -- I imagine you can take this too far.)

Assuming that Gibson actually hit her, she'd have a bona fide suit for assault. I'm not sure how far one can take threatening to reveal it in order to get some money before the law would call that extortion, but there is some room there.

I have to say that based on what I hear on the tapes, Gibson is plainly out of control, and it's hard for me to think he's anything but the villain in this.

Clarification: It's not her teeth that were knocked out, but the veneers/caps on them. This is why her dentist says "her teeth are intact" and so does Gibson's camp in a statement which avoids the subject of veneers.

I'm sure it probably takes less force to dislodge veneers than actual teeth, but I'm not sure how well that argument will play.

posted by Ace at 02:27 PM

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