Robert (Rob) Croskery fights for justice with words (and, by sticking an "s" on that, with a sword--check out his website) and for entertainment purposes with rabbits (well, okay, I don't know about the rabbits). But he is an illusionist outside the courtroom as well as inside, and served on the International Board of the (now defunct) World Alliance of Magicians (WAM).
Inside the courtroom, his cases have included doing battle with the Masked Magician, Val Valentino (that guy in the Fox videos).
Rob Croskery's lawsuit against "Val Valentino" as the masked magician was vindicated when Valentino admitted (through not answering requests for admissions) that he was the "Masked Magician" exposing the secrets of brethren and ruining the illusions that had formerly been used by hundreds of magicians to entertain hundreds of thousands of people—illusions that Valentino had not created, but chose to destroy. Valentino has not done any new specials as the "Masked Magician" since his unmasking in a Cincinnati courtroom, and his public "unmasking" the following week on a FOX special.
Read more on Rob's website here. Here's a story from the July 16, 1998 Cincinnati Post about Croskery's lawsuit against Valentino, alleging that Valentino destroyed the value of Croskery's magic trick by revealing its secret.
Specifically, Croskery says, the show revealed the secret to an illusion in which a woman is cut into three pieces.
He says the trick, known as a ''Zig-Zag,'' cost him $2,000 to buy and another 100 hours of his time to perfect. Because the show exposed the trick, Croskery says he was forced to sell the illusion for only $750.
The lawsuit, filed in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court, also claims that the show aided hecklers, made it impossible for magicians to perform certain tricks and deprived audiences of ''an awe-inspiring illusion.
Dan Horn, Poof! Illusions Disappeared; Magician Sues for Lost Secrets, Cincinnati Post, July 16, 1998.
Croskery was apaprently slightly more successful than magician Robert Rice, who sued Fox for copyright infringement and false advertising. The case is Rice v. Fox Broadcasting, 330 F. 3d 1170 (9th Cir., 2003). Rice lost in the lower court, and on appeal to the Ninth Circuit, which has three magician judges of its own: Judges Kozinski, Silverman, and Trott.
Please help!
What happened to the cheer sim sala bim sala sala bim?
I heard that cheer in Freedom Hall during the 1967 NCAA Basketball final when U Dayton played the Tarheels and never forgot it.
Posted by: carlos dos santos | December 07, 2010 at 06:27 PM
Perhaps the trial judge improperly dismissed the objections of the defense during the trial or the trial judge erred in instructing the jury or sentence. Or perhaps the defense lawyer fell asleep during much of the trial or there was juror misconduct which impacted the case.
Posted by: DUI Attorney Sacramento | March 02, 2011 at 01:41 PM