Hennepin County mug shot

Steve Lundeen is not the guy you want defending your case

​Steven P. Lundeen is not the kind of lawyer you want defending your case.

He falls asleep in court. Sometimes, he doesn't show up for trial at all. And then he makes up some outlandish story about why he missed trial -- when really he was asleep in his car, next to a pipe and a bag of cocaine.

"We are asking for his disbarment -- that's obviously as serious as the discipline gets," says Martin Cole, director of the Minnesota Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board.

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John C. Calhoun, senator, statesman, slavery proponent.

​The Minneapolis Park Board doesn't have the power to rename Lake Calhoun even if it wants to, according to a letter filed by the agency's attorney, Brian Rice.

In fact, it's not clear that anyone can change the lake's name.

Minnesota's commissioner of natural resources might have been able to do something about the city lake named after an iconic senator, statesman and slavery proponent, but such power expires 40 years after a lake is originally named, Rice advised the board.

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John C. Calhoun, slavery supporter.

​A few weeks ago, we asked whether Lake Calhoun was the most racist lake in Minnesota.

It seemed a reasonable question, after Minneapolis resident John Waters started raising a stink about the lake being named after historical figure John Caldwell Calhoun, an unabashed proponent of slavery.

The Minneapolis Park Board evidently thinks the question is worth exploring, too.

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Don't mess with his ride.

​Earlier this week we raised an eyebrow over a story that Al Jefferson, once our Franchise 2.0 player for the Timberwolves, had allegedly bilked local auto mechanic Eric Lero over some high-priced restoration work.

Lero, owner of Sub Zero Sounds, claimed Jefferson had stiff-armed him for tens of thousands of dollars, stopping payment of two checks as the result of court-approved settlement.

Today, Jefferson struck back.

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Liz Neuman's family has settled with the owners of the retreat where she died

​The owners of the Arizona retreat where Liz Neuman died after a sweat lodge disaster directed by a New Age guru have settled a civil lawsuit filed by her family.

In October 2009, the Prior Lake woman was one of three people to die during a spiritual retreat run by guru James Arthur Ray. The victims' families filed a lawsuit alleging that the conduct of retreat owners Michael and Amayra Hamilton led to the deaths of Neuman, Kirby Brown, and James Shore. A settlement agreement was reached last week but the terms were not disclosed.

Ray still faces manslaughter charges.

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Isaac Peters and Michael Lawson.

​As far as animal rights protests go, this one was pretty mild. No ink thrown on ladies wearing fur coats. No naked women chained to the front doors.

And Isaac Peter and Michael Christopher Lawson figured they were on pretty firm First Amendment grounds a year ago in March, when they showed up outside Ribnik Fur in downtown Minneapolis for one of their numerous demonstrations.

The two Plymouth men waved their signs. They chanted some slogans. They stared into the store's windows and shouted some nasty stuff.

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Screen grab: WCCO

Angelo Salas survived this.

​We've all been there in our minds, as we cruise underneath a highway overpass, looking skeptically at some shadowy figure evening the traffic and thinking, Hope that guy doesn't heave a rock over the side.

For Angelo Salas, such paranoia was well founded.

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Does Jack Nordy really know his gang bangers?

​A courtroom watchdog group has filed a complaint against Hennepin County Judge Jack Nordby for saying the red clipboards they use in court are intimidating. You know, kind of like gang colors.

That comment--and several others that the judge made about the group last year--offended the volunteers with the red clipboards enough that the group filed a complaint with the Minnesota Board on Judicial Standards. The board agreed that the judge had misbehaved.

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Image by Ouf-Ouf's World on Flickr

Escalators: a freak cause of death in St. Paul

​It was a terrible story from the Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul last July -- a food service worker fell 20 feet from an escalator to her death. Now, the family of Charleen Markell is suing the auditorium for negligence and carelessness.

The escalator was clearly not supposed to be used -- the auditorium had set up a barricade at both the top and bottom, St. Paul police said at the time. But Markell must have been in a hurry to get up. She clambered over the bottom barricade and walked up it anyway.

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Photo: runran/Flickr

Fikru Bayissa probably shouldn't have apologized

​Fikru Bayissa grabbed his former girlfriend Elizabeth Dahl by the hair last March. He bashed her head into a car steering wheel and dashboard. He choked her until she couldn't breathe. The next day, he followed up with threatening text messages. But when he turned and apologized to her in court last week, he got into more trouble.

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