Story of Billy Bob Striking Wife With Oscar Called Fiction

TRUTH OR TABLOID, MMM-HMMM: Forget those reports that Billy Bob Thornton whacked wife Pietra with the Best Screenplay Oscar he’d just won for “Sling Blade.”

It didn’t happen, said Pietra Thornton’s former publicist, Edward P. Lozzi, who recently gave a formal statement to her husband’s lawyers in connection with the couple’s mudslinging divorce. According to Lozzi, the actor-screenwriter’s attorneys were very interested in his wife’s contacts with the media in the weeks after the pair’s separation, which came complete with his-and-hers restraining orders.

“They interrogated me for three hours about how we handled Pietra Thornton’s image,” Lozzi said. “Under oath I was asked if she was seeing other men and if she was taking drugs and if I knew whether she was under psychiatric care.”

The publicist denied under oath that he had planted the bogus Oscar-bashing story, which first appeared in a nationally syndicated gossip column and was widely reported.

Lozzi, who has represented many celebs embroiled in legal disputes, added that it was the first time he had heard of a publicist being dragged by subpoena into a client’s court battle. “It’s a bad precedent for publicists,” he said.

Attorneys for Billy Bob Thornton had no comment.

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NO THANKS TO THE ACADEMY: A stand-up comedian who wrote a humorous gate-crashing guide says he was just goofing around when he donned a tux and walked into the Shrine Auditorium the afternoon before last year’s Oscar ceremony. The academy was not amused. He got busted.

Now, 30-year-old Scott Kerman of Marina del Rey is suing, claiming false arrest.

He contends in his lawsuit that after his arrest, the academy paraded him in front of television news cameras as if he were Public Enemy No. 1.

The charges were later dropped. Kerman, it turned out, had been issued credentials by the academy’s own press office.

In the Los Angeles Superior Court suit, Kerman says security officials followed him for 72 hours before the Oscars. When he was arrested, Kerman contends, one of the officers asked, “How are book sales going?”

He said he was traumatized by the experience.

“I spent nine hours in a South-Central jail cell with known felons, dressed in a tuxedo,” Kerman said.

The academy is unfazed.

“Here’s a guy who writes a book about how good he is at sneaking into exclusive events,” said academy Executive Director Bruce Davis.

“He goes on the radio and brags that he’s going to crash the Ocsars, and when he fails miserably, he decides to sue us for the humiliation he suffered,” Davis added.

“Is this a great country for lawyers or what?” he quipped.

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HE SAID/SHE SAID: Sondra Locke’s autobiography is out, chronicling her two decades of love and litigation with Clint Eastwood. And it’s called “The Good, the Bad and the Very Ugly.”

The tome dishes some dirt about Locke’s legal battles with Eastwood and Warner Bros. She sued both for allegedly killing her directing career after the couple’s bitter 1989 breakup.

Locke won a settlement from Eastwood last year, and recently an appeals court breathed new life into her Warner Bros. suit.

But, Locke writes, the road to justice has not been a smooth one. Superior Court Judge Thomas Murphy repeatedly addressed her lawyer, Peggy Garrity, as “little lady” during hearings in Burbank, the memoir says.

And, according to Locke, the judge told a rather sexist joke during one hearing: “How many men does it take to mop a kitchen floor? None, that’s woman’s work!”

Murphy dismissed Locke’s suit against Warner Bros., telling Garrity she was welcome to appeal, “and may God have mercy on your soul.”

Last month an appeals court reinstated the case against the studio. Murphy, who has retired from the bench, could not be reached for comment.

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REVENGE OF THE DRAGON LADY: Los Angeles County’s Civil Service Commission has agreed to hear a prosecutor’s grievance that Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti yanked her off a high-profile murder case as political payback.

Garcetti’s office had argued that any hearing on the job dispute would compromise the legal status of the case against alleged cross-country killer Glen Rogers, who is awaiting extradition to California from Florida’s death row.

The commissioners earlier had ruled against hearing Deputy Dist. Atty. Lea Purwin D’Agostino’s grievance, but reversed themselves after she provided documents bolstering her contention that she had tried to convince Los Angeles City Atty. James Hahn to run against Garcetti.

D’Agostino, a Van Nuys prosecutor who earned her “Dragon Lady” moniker during the “Twilight Zone” case a decade ago, had handled the Rogers case for two years before it was reassigned to Deputy Dist. Atty. Patrick Dixon.

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EX-FILES EAST: Although we see plenty of celeb litigation here in Los Angeles Superior Court, every once in a while a case worth noting pops up on that other coast.

Take the child custody battle in a Brooklyn, N.Y., appeals court between Harvey “The Piano” Keitel; his ex, Lorraine “Goodfellas” Bracco; and her current spouse, Edward James Olmos.

Keitel wants custody of his 12-year-old daughter, Stella, and is telling the court she isn’t safe in Olmos’ home. One reason Keitel has cited: those death threats Olmos has said he received from the Mexican Mafia in connection with his 1992 film “American Me.”

A Rockland County (N.Y.) Family Court judge earlier ruled that the threats were made too long ago to be taken seriously.