Charlie Sheen ex-wife seeks end to drug case

(Reuters) - Brooke Mueller, the ex-wife of actor Charlie Sheen, has hired a defense lawyer who will ask prosecutors to drop recent cocaine and assault charges filed against her in Colorado, her spokesman said on Wednesday.

Mueller was arrested this past weekend in the posh ski resort town of Aspen following a claim by another woman that Mueller assaulted her at a bar this past Friday night. Mueller, 34, was arrested sometime after midnight at a different club.

"Brooke is back home in Los Angeles spending quiet time with her children. She has retained her longtime attorney Yale Galanter, who is currently in Aspen investigating the case. Mr. Galanter will vigorously defend Brooke with the goal of having all charges dropped once the facts of the case come to light," Mueller's spokesman said in a statement on Wednesday.

Aspen police said they were conducting "a routine walk through" of the Belly Up bar late Friday night when a woman reported she was assaulted by Mueller.

Police later arrested Mueller and charged her with felony possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, and misdemeanor assault. She posted bond, was released and is due back in an Aspen courtroom on December 19.

Mueller and Sheen, who is coming off a turbulent year in his personal and professional life, have twin sons who continue to reside with Mueller, her spokesman said.

"Both Charlie and Brooke's mother have offered to support Brooke in any way they can," the spokesman said.

(Editing by Jill Serjeant)

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McCartney's ex-wife accuses Mirror of phone hacking (AFP)

LONDON (AFP) – The ex-wife of Paul McCartney claimed Wednesday that a journalist at Britain's Mirror Group newspapers admitted hacking into her phone, dragging another tabloid into the long-running scandal.

Heather Mills told the BBC's Newsnight programme that the journalist made the admission in 2001 when he confronted her about an argument she had had with McCartney, who was then still her boyfriend.

Mills said the journalist rang her and "started quoting verbatim the messages from my machine".

"You've obviously hacked my phone and if you do anything with this story -- because they were obviously very private conversations about issues we were having as a couple -- and I said, then I'll go to the police," she challenged him.

She said the journalist responded saying: "OK, OK, yeah we did hear it on your voice messages, I won't run it."

Rupert Murdoch shut down his News of the World tabloid last month after it was revealed that private investigators working for the Sunday paper had hacked into the voicemail of a missing 13-year-old girl who was later found dead.

Former journalists at the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror have already claimed that phone hacking was widespread at their papers too, although Trinity Mirror has insisted its staff act within the law.

The Mirror Group comprises the Daily Mirror and the Sunday Mirror, the People, and Scotland's Daily Record and Sunday Mail, while its parent company, Trinity Mirror, owns more than 100 regional titles.

In a statement to the BBC on Wednesday, a spokesman for Trinity Mirror said: "Our position is clear. All our journalists work within the criminal law and the PCC (Press Complaints Commission) code of conduct."

The BBC did not identify the journalist, but confirmed that it was not Piers Morgan, who was editor of the Daily Mirror at the time and is now a celebrity talkshow host on US television network CNN.

However, the broadcaster said the message Mills refers to appears to be the same one which Morgan later admitted to listening to in a 2006 newspaper article.

Morgan has always denied hacking phones, ordering anyone to hack phones, or to his knowledge publishing stories obtained from phone hacking.

Conservative MP Therese Coffey, a member of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee investigating phone hacking, said Morgan should return to Britain to explain "very strong" new evidence.

"If Mr Morgan wants to come back to the UK and help them with their inquiries, and I don't mean being arrested in any way, I'm sure he can add more light," she told Newsnight on Wednesday.

"I don't see any point in him necessarily just staying in the US and issuing statements."

Morgan earlier issued a statement through CNN accusing Mills of intercepting voicemails herself.

"I have no knowledge of any conversation any executive from other newspapers at Trinity Mirror may or may not have had with Heather Mills," he said.

"What I can say and have knowledge of is that Sir Paul McCartney asserted that Heather Mills illegally intercepted his telephones, and leaked confidential material to the media."

Although the scandal has so far centred on the News of the World, where a royal editor and a private investigator were jailed in 2007, there is growing evidence that other newspapers may have used the practice.

Trinity Mirror launched an internal review into its editorial practices last month, although it stressed this was not in response to any specific allegation.

McCartney and Mills divorced in 2008.

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McCartney ex-wife: Mirror journalist hacked my phone (Reuters)

LONDON (Reuters) – Heather Mills was quoted on Wednesday as saying a journalist at British publisher Trinity Mirror, owner of the Daily Mirror tabloid newspaper, had hacked her phone before she was married to former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney.

The accusation widens a scandal over phone hacking by British newspapers that has so far center on titles owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, with the furor also threatening to embroil U.S. talk show host Piers Morgan.

The BBC said the messages were left by McCartney, whom Mills married in 2002. The couple separated four years later.

Mills said the journalist had confronted her with details of sensitive messages left on her phone.

"He started quoting verbatim the messages from my machine, and...I'd wondered why they had already been heard, listened to, when it says 'heard messages'," Mills told the BBC.

The BBC said the journalist worked at the Mirror group, although Mills does not mention the journalist's employers in the audio clip provided by the BBC.

"I said you've obviously hacked my phone and if you do anything with this story, because they were obviously very private conversations about issues we were having as a couple, I said then I'll go to the police," she added.

She went on to say the journalist admitted hacking her phone and agreed not to use a story based on the messages.

"All of our journalists work within the criminal law and the PCC code of conduct," said Nick Fullagar, Trinity Mirror's director of corporate communications, referring to Britain's Press Complaints Commission industry watchdog.

PIERS MORGAN

Allegations of phone hacking at the News of World Sunday newspaper, owned by News Corp's British newspaper arm News International, last month prompted the newspaper's closure and the resignation of News International chief Rebekah Brooks.

CNN talk show host Morgan, who once edited the News of the World and later the Daily Mirror until 2004, has repeatedly denied any role in the phone hacking scandal.

In a 2006 article for Britain's Daily Mail newspaper, Morgan said he had listened to one of Mills' phone messages.

"Stories soon emerged that the marriage was in trouble - at one stage I was played a tape of a message Paul had left for Heather on her mobile phone," he wrote.

The BBC said Morgan was not the journalist who had contacted Mills with details of her phone messages.

Morgan said in a statement the BBC had confirmed to him that the journalist, whom Morgan refers to as a senior executive, was not employed by the Daily Mirror. He also said he had no knowledge of conversations any other executive at Trinity Mirror may have had with Mills.

"Heather Mills has made unsubstantiated claims about a conversation she may or may not have had with a senior executive from a Trinity Mirror newspaper in 2001," he said, describing her claims as "somewhat extravagant."

"To reiterate, I have never hacked a phone, told anyone to hack a phone, nor to my knowledge published any story obtained from the hacking of a phone," he added.

Mark Lewis, lawyer for victims of phone hacking by the News of the World, on Monday confirmed that he had instructions to take legal action against Trinity Mirror on behalf of other unnamed phone hacking victims.

(Additional reporting by Olesya Dmitracova and Georgina Prodhan)

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