Michelle Holden at a New Chapter in Her Life--Chapter 7

These are the worst of times for Michelle Holden. It seems like only yesterday that she was the first lady of Pasadena. But when bad things happen, they inevitably happen in threes.

First, she was put on probation after copping a plea to a felony count of having sex with her underage male baby-sitter. Then her husband, the former Pasadena mayor, strolled. Now she says she’s flat broke.

Holden last week filed for protection from her creditors under Chapter 7 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. In her petition, she lists more than $1 million in debts and $364,400 in assets.

Chief among her debts are lawyers’ fees--$19,000 owed to criminal defense lawyer Mark Geragos, $15,000 owed to civil lawyer Michael Brown and a $450,000 claim by Leo Terrell, civil lawyer for the baby-sitter and his family. She also owes $37,000 to her father-in-law, Los Angeles City Councilman Nate Holden, about $130,000 in back taxes and, last but not least, $1,000 for her court-ordered home detention program.

Among her assets: a $360,000 house in Pasadena, co-owned with her estranged husband, a 1989 Chevy Cavalier and a $100 savings account.

Chris Holden is seeking a legal separation and joint custody of the couple’s four children. The Holdens married in 1990 and split shortly before Christmas.

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PLAYING PATTY-CAKE: Is newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst Shaw relieved that the television cameras won’t be focused on her if and when she appears as the prosecution’s star witness at the Sara Jane Olson trial? Who knows? There’s a gag order in effect--not that Hearst was talking anyway.

We are aware that she’s not fond of ink-stained wretches, particularly when they ask about her days as Tania, guerrilla princess of the Symbionese Liberation Army.

Back in the 1980s, when she had a book to sell about her SLA experience, she dissed the Fourth Estate during an interview with Playboy:

“I have a very hard time respecting reporters,” she said. “That seems like such a sleazy job, chasing people with a pencil and pad in your hand, annoying people.”

There’s more:

“I don’t read the bylines. Hey, you know, anybody could write that stuff.”

Hey, you know, anybody can live off that stuff we write.

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WE’RE NO. 1!: At the top of the big verdicts list for 1999 was a Los Angeles Superior Court jury’s $4.9-billion award to two women and four children who were severely burned by an exploding gas tank. A judge later whittled the verdict against General Motors to $1.2 billion. Other big legal awards, according to Lawyers Weekly USA: In Milwaukee, $1.2 billion was awarded to the family of a woman who was killed in a go-cart accident at a Florida amusement park; in Philadelphia, fugitive hippie guru Ira Einhorn was ordered to pay $907 million to the family of the girlfriend he was convicted of murdering in 1977; in Stanislaus County, $290 million from Ford Motor Co. was awarded to three children whose parents and brother died when their Ford Bronco rolled over on a freeway.

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BELIEVE: A state appeals court breathed new life into a contractor’s $415,000 breach of contract suit against Cher, even though she never signed on the dotted line.

Arya Group had agreed to design a new $4-million home for the entertainer off Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, but was canned midway through construction. Arya claims in the suit that Cher, a “temperamental, spoiled and conniving entertainer,” still owed $415,000 on a contract she never intended to honor.

The company’s suit was tossed out in 1998 by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ronald Cappai, who found that there was no written contract and therefore no case.

But the 2nd District Court of Appeal found that the company might be able to enforce its alleged handshake deal if it can prove the house was built on speculation for resale at a profit.

Cher, the court found, is “a highly sophisticated homeowner with previous involvement in residential construction projects,” and not the usual schmo the laws were meant to protect.

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REBUTTAL TIME: We read a little bit too much between the lines of actress Gail O’Grady’s lawsuit against the city. Anthony J. Pellegrino is not her husband, and he does not live in her house in Encino. Rather, the two have a business relationship, says O’Grady’s assistant. Meanwhile, George Justice, the builder O’Grady is suing over the collapse of her backyard, says that O’Grady has turned down a $1.6-million settlement offer. O’Grady also is suing the city, saying it failed to enforce its own building codes.