There is a certain kind of story that you can’t imagine reading anywhere but the New York Post — or, at least, you can’t imagine any other publication writing about with quite the same joie de vivre as the tabloid. Today’s paper brought what might just be the apex of the genre: “Justice for Beat Stripper, Mogul Faces Jail.” But judge for yourself. The relevant details:
• The prosecutors in the case want the “maximum sentence,” which are the Post’s favorite kind of prosecutors.
• The “mogul” in question is Thomas Hartmann a one-legged “former Long Island construction worker who struck it rich by winning a multimillion-dollar police-brutality settlement in 2010.” He is the villain, obviously.
• The heroine is “Russian-born stripper Sophia Kandelaki, who met the newly rich Hartmann in a flirtatious exchange at a drunken party at an Upper East Side restaurant last April.” She is mostly the heroine because she showed up at court in a tube top. And, also, all of this:
She also told jurors she is a survivor of a gunpoint kidnapping, a reality-star hopeful, a stripper, a vegan chef and an expert in “deep, inner tantric massage.”
“Men and women are naked,” she told jurors, describing the massage by rubbing her shoulders on the witness stand.
“Just touching, touching, touching,” she explained.
Now, you might be thinking, This isn’t the first time I’ve read about an assault case involving a kidnapping survivor-stripper-masseuse-vegan chef (with an arrest record) in the Post. What makes this story so special, so Post?
Hartmann’s crime: He was convicted of beating the woman with a Rolex.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the prosecution rests. We will, of course, seek the maximum penalty.
