Joe Francis Gets Off Easy

SLEAZE PATROL Francis

• Child's play: Girls Gone Wild auteur (and Radar plaything) Joe Francis gets fined and sentenced to community service for filming 17-year-old girls in Panama City, Florida.

• Another light sentence: Athanase Seromba, a priest convicted of ordering the murders of 2,000 people during the Rwanda genocide in 1994, gets 15 years in prison, minus four for time served.

• Life, Congress in the balance: Democratic Senator Tim Johnson of South Dakota has been hospitalized, possibly for a stroke, possibly inspiring strokes among his fellow Dems, who would lose their majority without him.

• Holy crap!: Actor Peter Boyle, known to fans as the father on Everybody Loves Raymond has died at 71. He'll always be Young Frankenstein to us.

• The sober side of TMZ: America's most popular site for celebrity hijinks offers a somber editorial about the dangers of drunk driving: "These celebs have gotten away with a lot—mostly small stuff—for a long time. And each time you get away with something you shouldn't, you get bolder the next time." And that's one to grow on.

Photo: Splash News & Images