1-800 Gross Idea in Broadway Actor's Sex Abuse Case

A judge granted a gag order in the case of the Broadway actor accused of seducing an underage admirer.

The lawyer for James Barbour, the actor in question, wanted to set up an 800 hotline and ask others if the accuser, who is now 20 but was 15 at the time of the alleged abuse, had accused them of the same crimes. And he would be publicizing her name in the process! Attorney Ronald Fischetti said, "I'm going to get my story out the same way she got her story out. I want to put a hotline with [the accuser's] name on it in the newspapers so people can call me on the basis of other claims that she has made." That's pretty far, in the "accuse the accuser" realm. But Judge Micki Shearer said, "You're going to have to refrain from doing that."

The Daily News reports that the prosecution, upset that Fischetti had claimed in the press that the accuser is only interested in Barbour's inheritance (the accuser and Barbour are from the same NJ town, where his "mother's death was front-page news"), and Fischetti were arguing so heatedly in the hall to the point that a "court officer came to separate them." This is totally going to be a Law & Order: SVU episode.