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PEOPLE & ARTS Thursday 31 May 2018
Jury: David Copperfield not liable for tourist's injuries

Associated Press up until the time I was
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Illusionist injured," Cox testified.
David Copperfield was He recalled stagehands
found negligent but not shouting "Run! Run! Run!"
financially responsible for a through an outdoor
British tourist's injuries during alleyway that his lawyers
a signature vanishing act say was coated with
that used participants construction dust.
from the audience of a Las Cox, 57, a former chef from
Vegas Strip show in 2013, a Kent, England, said he fell
jury said Tuesday. hard on his right side and
Gavin Cox and his wife, didn't remember getting
Minh-Hahn Cox, alleged up to finish the illusion in
negligence by the November 2013. Afterward,
multimillionaire magician, Cox said he received
the MGM Grand hotel, medical treatment from
two Copperfield business paramedics and at a
entities and a construction hospital for shoulder and
firm that was renovating other injuries. Two day later,
the hotel. he and his wife and a lawyer
In a complex verdict returned to the theater
reached after several at the MGM Grand and
weeks of testimony but filed an accident report.
only about two hours of Copperfield testified that
deliberation, the state civil until Cox sued in August
court jury found negligence 2014, he never knew of
by Copperfield, the anyone getting hurt during
hotel and Copperfield's nearly 20 years performing
company, Backstage the illusion on tour and
Disappearing Inc. in Las Vegas. He said he
But jurors found no liability stopped performing it in
for each of those named 2015. The magician said he
in the lawsuit, and instead didn't see construction dust
found Cox 100 percent In this April 24, 2018, file photo, illusionist David Copperfield appears in court in Las Vegas. on the ground when he
responsible for his own Associated Press passed through the same
injuries. The verdict means outdoor alley alone as part
the Coxes cannot seek reappear moments later, $400,000 in medical costs. about 60 to 90 seconds, of another illusion about 10
monetary damages, court waving flashlights in the Copperfield's lawyers lost a stagehands with flashlights minutes earlier.
spokeswoman Mary Ann back of the theater. bid to close the courtroom ushered the randomly Cox's lawyers brought in
Price said. His lawyer, Benedict Morelli, to the public to prevent chosen participants three women who testified
Gavin Cox testified that told jurors during closing disclosure of secrets about past dark curtains, down that they also were injured
he suffered brain and arguments that the trick the illusion. At least 55,000 passageways, around during the illusion over the
other injuries in a fall while was inherently dangerous, audience volunteers had corners, outdoors, indoors years, including a Michigan
stagehands urged him and that Copperfield taken part in the trick and through an MGM schoolteacher who said
and others to run during should be held partially over 17 years, according Grand resort kitchen to re- she fell but finished with
an illusion that appeared liable for Cox's injuries. to Copperfield and show enter the theater for the a bloody knee during a
to make as many as 13 Four years ago, attorneys executive producer Chris show's finale, according to Copperfield performance
audience volunteers estimated that Cox had Kenner. testimony. about five months before
disappear onstage and that racked up more than Jurors learned that in "I was having a good time Cox's fall.q

Action is fast-paced in Laird Barron's 'Blood Standard'

By BRUCE DESILVA ride and blaze away at a no novice, having won cops, a bent FBI agent and
Associated Press herd of walruses, planning the Shirley Jackson Award nearly every modern villain
"Blood Standard: a Novel" to butcher them for ivory. three times for horror and short of Voldemort.
(G.P. Putnam's Sons), by There, he discovers that his gothic fantasy. Along the way, he is shot,
Laird Barron capacity for violence has Coleridge is settling in at stabbed and bludgeoned
Isaiah Coleridge, muscle for limits. the farm when one of its beyond the endurance of
the Chicago mob's Alaska He chops one wiseguy in denizens — a teenage girl mere mortals. But Hercules
subsidiary, isn't your typical the throat, points a gun at fresh out of lockup — goes gives worse than he
Mafia hit man. the other and flees, turning missing. Coleridge doesn't gets, and he cannot be
He's college educated, up at a remote New York like her, but nevertheless deterred.
frequently alludes to Greek farm whose New Age sets out to track her down. The action is fast-paced,
and Roman classics and owners take in all manner His pursuit soon pits him the characters well drawn,
relishes his underworld of lost souls. against white supremacists, the settings vivid and the
moniker — Hercules. That's where the heart of a Native American criminal hardboiled prose quirky in This cover image released
by G.P. Putnam's Sons shows
Coleridge kills without Laird Barron's tale begins. gang, the New York the manner of a writer who "Blood Standard," a novel by
remorse until two of his "Blood Standard" is his first mafia, a team of former cut his teeth on horror and Laird Barron.
bosses invite him on a boat noir crime novel, but he's mercenaries, corrupt local poetry.q Associated Press