Darden, Woman Battle Over 3-Month-Old Infant

Sitting through all that talk about DNA during the O.J. Simpson trial should come in handy for former prosecutor Christopher Darden, who said Wednesday that he is awaiting “verified” results of a paternity test.

In separate lawsuits filed in downtown Los Angeles and Lancaster, Darden and supermarket checker Miki Gaut are asking the court to determine whether he is the father of Tiffany Darden, who will be 3 months old Monday.

Although some men might resist having fatherhood thrust upon them by the court, Darden seems to be embracing it. He’s not only taken the test, he’s also asking for custody of Tiffany if the test shows she’s his daughter.

“Tiffany Darden is a wonderful little baby and I want what’s best for her,” Darden said in a statement released by his publicist. “I have taken Tiffany into my home, my family, and my heart.”

Darden filed his suit Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court after failed attempts to work things out quietly with the child’s mother, who lives in Palmdale. A dispute over visitation apparently sparked the dueling paternity cases.

“If Mr. Darden is Tiffany’s father, he wishes to raise her and believes it will be in Tiffany’s best interests if he is primary custodial parent,” Darden’s publicist said in a prepared statement. “He wants to provide her with the moral, intellectual, ethical and ethnic guidance that he believes are in her best interests.”

Gaut’s lawyer, Morgan Spector, said his client is “a moral, intellectual, ethical and ethnically conscious person.”

“What is this?” Spector said, in response to the Darden statement. “It’s the implication that she is somehow less fit is what we resent.”

He added, “Mr. Darden is attempting to take custody of a breast-feeding infant from her mother. I think that is highly inappropriate.”

Paternity cases are private in California and lawyers revealed little as they rushed between closed-door court hearings in downtown Los Angeles and Lancaster, more than 60 miles apart. All court files have been sealed.

Darden, now a law professor, legal commentator and author, acknowledges “a brief friendship” last fall with Gaut. He said he paid for her medical insurance and other other expenses related to Tiffany’s birth May 25 at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

BEWARE THE DRAGON LADY: The latest unhappy member of that dysfunctional family known as the Los Angeles district attorney’s office is Lea Purwin D’Agostino, aka “The Dragon Lady.” The tenacious Van Nuys-based prosecutor is proud of the moniker and is known for her snappy wardrobe and the warm rapport she forges with crime victims.

But it’s no secret that D’Agostino has a somewhat chillier relationship with Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti.

Accompanied by lawyer Gloria Allred,

D’Agostino came onto Garcetti’s turf Wednesday to publicly protest being yanked off the case of alleged cross-country serial killer Glen Rogers just eight days after she’d told her bosses she’d probably won Rogers’ extradition to California.

At a news conference in front of the Criminal Courts Building downtown, D’Agostino alleged that Garcetti had taken her off the potentially high-profile prosecution as a “vindictive political payback.” D’Agostino has a hearing before the county Civil Service Commission on Sept. 10.

The Rogers case was all hers for the two years it appeared nothing would come of it in Los Angeles. Now that an extradition agreement seems near, the case has been reassigned to Deputy Dist. Atty. Patrick Dixon, in the downtown major crimes division.

D’Agostino contended that Garcetti took the Rogers case from her to nip her own political ambitions in the bud and to get even with her for supporting his political opponents in last year’s election. Garcetti squeaked by with a 5,000-vote runoff victory over Norwalk prosecutor John Lynch.

Besides Allred, the prosecutor was supported by Jan Baxter, the mother of Van Nuys murder victim Sandra Gallagher, whose strangulation murder is believed to have begun Rogers’ rampage.

“I am outraged to say the least,” Baxter said. “Mr. Garcetti, won’t you for once forget your personal agenda? Leave politics out of it. Do what’s right! Please restore the one prosecutor in whom I have confidence in this case.”

Rogers, 35, was sentenced last month to die in Florida’s electric chair for the stabbing murder of Tina Marie Cribbs, a woman he met in a Florida bar.

Garcetti would not comment. His office released a statement saying, “The Glen Rogers case went through the normal evaluation process that is applied to all major cases within the district attorney’s office.”

BRAD PITT EXPOSED: It may be one of the best-kept secrets in Los Angeles: A California appeals court has reinstated the recall of the August issue of Playgirl, which contains nude photos of actor Brad Pitt taken during a Caribbean vacation two years ago.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal granted Pitt’s emergency request to enforce a Superior Court injunction issued Aug. 7 preventing further sales of the magazine, which Playgirl says already has sold out and become a collector’s item.

Playgirl lawyer Kent Raygor said the magazine has notified its distributors not to sell the August issue anymore. But, he added, the September issue is already on most newsstands.

Pitt’s lawyers argued that Playgirl’s appeal was “spurious” and intended to subvert the recall. If the appeals court did not act, attorney Jay Laveley argued, Playgirl would “have succeeded in its plan to reap huge profits from the sale of its magazine flaunting unauthorized and illegal photographs of Pitt.”

Playgirl’s lawyers have until tomorrow to file their legal objections. The magazine maintains that it no longer has control over any unsold August issues that might exist, and that Pitt’s request for a recall came too late.

The legal maneuvering has highlighted a classic clash of fundamental rights.

Pitt says his privacy has been invaded and his value as a celebrity exploited. Playgirl says that it was Pitt who chose “to parade around in the nude.” The courts, by ordering a recall of the publication, are encroaching on Playgirl’s constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech, attorney Raygor contends.