People in the news

Britney Spears talks about kids in interview

Los Angeles – Britney Spears defended her parenting and decried her critics, lamenting “how cruel our world can be,” in a brief interview on Ryan Seacrest’s radio show Wednesday.

Spears, always photographed but rarely interviewed these days, also spoke about her new album “Blackout” during the seven-minute talk, during which she giggled frequently as her assistant, Alli Sims, and friend Sam Lufti laughed and shouted in the background.

When the “American Idol” host, who has a morning radio show on KIIS-FM in Los Angeles, asked Spears whether she was doing all she could for her children, Spears replied, “Oh, God, yeah.”

“People say what they want and do what they do and it’s sad how people, how cruel our world can be,” she said. “At the end of the day … you’ve just got to know in your heart that you’re doing the best you can and that’s basically it.”

Spears’ ex-husband, Kevin Federline, has primary custody of her two sons, Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1. A judge on Tuesday granted Spears’ three monitored visits a week. She must also take parenting classes and submit to random weekly drug and alcohol tests.

Spears was unclear when Seacrest asked how often she would see the boys.

“That’s, like, all in the court,” she said. “Stuff like that, my lawyers know all that stuff.”

Seacrest apparently woke Spears up when he called her for the interview, and at times she didn’t seem to understand his questions. When Seacrest asked Spears whether the intense coverage of her recent troubles has been “overwhelming,” she said, “Wait, what?”

However, she then said: “People talk and they say what they want at the end of the day, you know in the tabloids and in the magazines,” she said. “But you just try to keep on doing what you do, like, you know, and as long as you know what’s up and you know what’s true, that’s all that really matters, you know?”

Jury convicts MTV’s Margera on sex counts

Golden, Colo. – The man known as “Don Vito” on MTV’s show “Viva La Bam” was convicted Wednesday of two counts of sexual assault on a child.

Vincent Margera, 51, who was accused of groping three girls ages 12 to 14 during an autograph signing event last year at a mall skate park in the Denver suburb of Lakewood, fell to the floor cursing and yelled, “Just kill me now.”

He was acquitted of a third count of sex assault on a child. He faces a sentence of probation to six years in prison on each conviction. If he doesn’t comply with sex offender treatment as part of the sentence, he could potentially spend life in prison, district attorney’s spokeswoman Pam Russell said.

Garrison gets more than 3 years for deadly crash

Los Angeles – Lane Garrison was sentenced to three years and four months in prison Wednesday for a drunken driving crash that killed a 17-year-old Beverly Hills High School student in December.

“The public has the right to know that conduct such as this, causing devastation such as this” will have consequences, said Superior Court Judge Elden S. Fox.

Garrison, 27 could have received nearly seven years in prison. He had no reaction to the sentencing and was taken away in handcuffs.

Before the sentencing, he apologized to the family of Vahagn Setian.

“I’m sick of my own behavior that night,” he said. “This remorse is genuine. I feel it every day.”

Setian was a passenger in the 2001 Land Rover that Garrison rammed into a tree on Dec. 2. Two 15-year-old girls who also were in the vehicle survived.

Fashion designer: Star client Lopez is pregnant

New York – Roberto Cavalli has confirmed, perhaps inadvertently, that Jennifer Lopez is pregnant.

Asked what types of clothing he designs for celebrities, the fashion designer told People magazine: “Well Jennifer Lopez, at this moment, she requests something very special because she is waiting for the baby.”

“It is so complicated because every week she is getting bigger,” Cavalli said in a story posted Tuesday on the magazine’s Web site.

Cavalli, known for his attention-getting designs, created free-flowing outfits for Lopez, who has been on tour with her husband, Marc Anthony.

His comment came after weeks of speculation, tabloid baby-bump pictures and raised eyebrows. Lopez, 39, has declined comment.

A telephone message left Wednesday for her publicist, Nancy Ryder, wasn’t immediately returned.

Jeweler pleads guilty to lying to officers

Detroit – A celebrity jeweler who put diamonds on celebrities from Sir Elton John to Kanye West pleaded guilty Wednesday to falsifying records and giving false statements to investigators looking into a multistate drug ring.

Terms of the plea deal call for Jacob Arabov, of New York, to serve up to 46 months in prison and pay a $2 million penalty, U.S. Attorney Stephen J. Murphy said in a news release. No sentencing date was immediately set by U.S. District Judge Avern Cohn.

In return for the guilty plea, prosecutors agreed to drop money laundering charges against the man known in the hip-hop world as “Jacob the Jeweler,” said Arabov’s attorney, Benjamin Brafman.

“I realize I have made a terrible mistake and I accept the consequences of my actions,” Arabov said in a news release issued through Brafman.

Arabov, 42, was arrested in June 2006 at his Manhattan jewelry shop. Authorities accused him and others of conspiring to launder about $270 million in drug profits for the “Black Mafia Family,” a ring that operated out of the Detroit area beginning in the early 1990s.