ELOsO213

LOS ANGELES – Cloaked inside dark SUVs with black-draped windows, a two-man paparazzi team begins "covert ops" on a recent Sunday morning. They're staking out the home of actress Kim Basinger, who they plan to follow to church.If all goes well, Basinger will be with 10-year-old Ireland – the daughter she and ex Alec Baldwin are viciously feuding over in court – and the "paps" will clandestinely snap gossip-grist mother-and-child as they walk from the church parking lot to pray.CAROL KRON / Copley News Service While the paparazzi (including Sergio Huapaya, center), snap Sarah Ferguson, another target (Kimberly Stewart, background) approaches on Robertson Boulevard. "We're 90 percent CIA and 10 percent photographer," says Arnold Cousart, 33, armed with a long-zoom-lensed Canon and clad in khaki sun hat, shades and a brown T-shirt declaring "Assume Nothing." His cell rings with tips from pals and paid spies, and a two-way radio cord dangles from his ear like a Secret Service agent.Cousart and Sergio Huapaya, his 32-year-old tattooed paparazzi partner, are ex-gang members and among the 200 celebrity photogs relentlessly prowling streets here to capture stars' everyday lives. Cousart named his seven-man agency JFX Direct after Jefrox, the L.A. street gang he and Huapaya belonged to as teens, and a Filipino-based reference to "the projects." JFX is Jefrox's acronym. The duo allows a reporter and newspaper photographer to tag along, giving an eye-opening peek into a madcap world teeming with rival paparazzi on the lookout for their own as much as A-listers, who both trash Tinseltown snappers and use them to hype their careers.It's also a world on guard after several high-profile clashes last year, including one involving "Mean Girls" star Lindsay Lohan. The District Attorney's Office recently determined a Fame Pictures paparazzo did not intentionally ram his minivan into the teen queen's Mercedes sports car, as she claimed. By then though, the accident had spurred a new state law that took effect Jan. 1, slapping hefty fines on paparazzi who commit assaults while pursuing celebs.Since paparazzi are generally depicted as pushy slime-bag vultures, it's worth noting that the Screen Actors Guild, in a letter lobbying for the law and signed by pet paparazzi targets Scarlett Johansson, Reese Witherspoon and Nick Lachey, pointed out that "the vast majority of photographers are professional and courteous." The actors took aim at "some paparazzi" who use "extreme tactics that result in intimidating situations and frightening accidents."CAROL KRON / Copley News Service Paparazzi partners Arnold Cousart, left, and Sergio Huapaya, right, wait with rivals for pop star Jessica Simpson to drive by. Two JFX shooters were following Johansson for four days last summer – they had tracked the "Match Point" star from the airport to her Hollywood home and back and forth to Bristol Farms and Starbucks – when she got into her well-publicized fender-bender in the Disneyland parking lot. The photogs were not cited or arrested, and Cousart contends his lensmen were more than a block away. "We shadow more than we chase," he insists.In another Disney scrap, paparazzo Todd K. Wallace went on the lam after being charged with battery for allegedly smacking a 5-year-old girl in the head with his camera when he disrupted Witherspoon's family outing at the California Adventure theme park.A special district attorney's unit in Los Angeles is looking at some paparazzi and agencies to see if criminal charges, including false imprisonment and conspiracy counts, should be filed for using confrontational tactics. Head prosecutor William Hodgman won't divulge specifics."Things have taken an ugly turn for the worse in the last couple years," he ominously says. "It's more dangerous out there. It's miraculous no one has been killed or seriously injured."Blood sportCousart and Huapaya, both dads of young girls, idle in separate SUVs about 12 houses down from Basinger's on a quiet Woodland Hills cul-de-sac. Their backs to Basinger's home (so they don't have to make quick U-turns), Cousart trains binoculars on his driver's side mirror to watch behind for her new black Range Rover to make a move.CAROL KRON / Copley News Service Once rocker daughter Kimberly Stewart got their attention, Sergio Huapaya, left, and other photographers memorialize her shopping on Robertson Boulevard. "The whole couple of weeks I've been working on her, she's had no idea," Huapaya boasts. Like a private eye, for days he's secretly tailed the "L.A. Confidential" Oscar-winner about town and to a horse ranch 30 miles away – never shooting a photo but to figure out her routine.This morning, Basinger is a bust, not leaving home. Next blood sport: Jessica Simpson. Rumors persist the pop diva is splitsville from Lachey, a dream bust-up for the glut of glossy weeklies and tabs.Before heading to nearby Calabasas, where the MTV "Newlyweds" have a home in a gated enclave, Huapaya does a just-in-case swoop through the parking lot of Basinger's church. "I would never shoot a funeral because I've had too many friends pass away," he remarks.Cousart, who is of Filipino descent, named JFX Direct "to dedicate it to the friends no longer here." He met the Hispanic Huapaya in the multiethnic gang when he was 13 and they've been tight ever since. "We slightly went off track in the '80s," says Cousart. Asked to elaborate, he mentions problems in school and his juvenile arrest during a gang-profile sweep.Now settled down, Cousart lives with his pregnant wife, who helps run the agency from their mid-Wilshire home, and their 2-year-old daughter. Huapaya resides across the street.While the trim, 5-foot-9, goateed Cousart blends into a crowd, Huapaya is unmistakable. Wearing baggy below-the-knees Dickie shorts, he's burly, bald, and sports bold tattoos – the name of 6-year-old daughter "Kalie" is inked across his right lower leg and her birth date is etched in 6-inch-high numbers on his left arm.Granted, they may be on their best behavior, but throughout this long hectic day, both Cousart and Huapaya do not act like hostile maggots or commit any moving violations. In fact, they're quite personable."There's X17 and Flynet," says Huapaya. He points to a 4Runner and Escalade piloted by rival paparazzi and already posted in Simpson-Lachey turf.CAROL KRON / Copley News Service Paparazzi at the Chateau Marmont were hoping for a glimpse of Jessica Simpson, but instead they found themselves aiming at starlet Lindsay Lohan, who emerged from an SUV. It's a cutthroat biz; at times territorial paparazzi have thrown blows at each other. "The paparazzi all look for each other's cars to see who they're following," says Huapaya. He may camp out in his back seat all day for two weeks straight to covertly follow and shoot a star only to have a competitor spot his vehicle and pounce on his quarry.Huapaya and Cousart each pull over on a side street near a golf course about a quarter-mile from the marriage-on-the-rocks manse, but with a view of the main drag Jessica must travel on if she leaves home in her light green Range Rover or black Mercedes convertible. Within a half-hour, four rival paparazzi are parked in a row behind them.A watchful Los Angeles sheriff's deputy repeatedly cruises by. "Any luck today?" he finally hollers from his patrol car. "I don't think they split up."Lachey tools down the main street in his silver Ferrari. No one chases after him since he's headed to his gated abode.The boring wait begins. Payoffs are the prize. Weeks earlier, JFX photogs staked out the home of Ben Affleck, then followed him and expectant wife Jennifer Garner to Griffith Park for what turned out to be an outdoor birthday party for Ben's actor-brother, Casey. Another agency, Bauer-Griffin, shagged Casey from his home to the park with the same Ben-Jen hopes. Cousart says the pooled pics of the blissful couple, shot with telephoto lenses and first appearing as a cover spread in Us Weekly, fetched more than $100,000 worldwide.Back on Jessica Watch, someone screams at the parked paparazzi from a passing car: "Scum of the earth!"On occasion, Cousart has had eggs hurled at him.After a couple hours, a photog friend cryptically tells Cousart that Simpson "is someplace else" before tearing off.Cousart figures the "Dukes of Hazzard" star slipped past unnoticed by lying down in somebody's decoy car. How crazy is that? To avoid the paparazzi, famous people in this town travel about prone on rear floorboards.Voyeuristic societyAbout a decade ago, there were maybe two dozen paparazzi in L.A."The ranks have swelled," prosecutor Hodgman says. "It's like the gold rush of 1849. The photo opportunities are here. We have everyone from probationers to ex-gang members to expatriates from Europe all behind the shutter of a camera."Advertisement There's also an ex-firefighter, an ex-schoolteacher and an ex-cop.Peter Grossman, the news photo editor of Us, says each week paparazzi submit 5,000 to 10,000 images shot from the streets for possible publication. "It's definitely gone through the roof."Blame it on our star-struck voyeuristic society. And the lure of the mighty buck – paparazzi say they earn anywhere from $40,000 to $300,000 a year, with a few tenacious vets raking in $1 million. Grossman won't say what his magazine pays for photos. But he notes the market is so oversaturated with paparazzi taking similar shots, that Paris Hilton out shopping may only go for $500. Six-figure exclusives, such as Brad and Angelina on the Kenya beach – "the first photographic evidence" of their rumored romance – are extremely rare, Grossman says. The photos, which initially ran in Us, were reportedly sold for $500,000.Cousart got his career going while processing film at a photo lab frequented by pre-digital paparazzi. A high school dropout, he says he later trained with a German paparazzo's agency, before honing surveillance skills and the art of cooling one's heels at Fame Pictures. In August 2000, he says he donned surgical scrubs, drove a rented Jaguar, and piggybacked behind an entering car to sneak into the doctor's parking structure at Cedars-Sinai hospital. Inside the garage, Cousart says he stared at an elevator door for 12 hours a day in order to alert a positioned camera-ready co-worker when Madonna emerged with newborn son Rocco.He says he also spent 12-hour days with his nose pressed against the window of an 11th floor unfurnished Century City condo that a larger agency rented for $3,000-a-month in the quest to snap Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones and their young son Dylan. The star couple was living in the high-rise, which had no nearby parking for the paparazzi to get a vantage point. Cousart says his job was to stare down at the valet area and alert a nearby colleague if the couple left so that photog could begin the tail.Huapaya, in the interim, worked for a product placement firm that dealt with Hollywood studios.After freelancing as paparazzi, the two started JFX with their own freelancers."We go low-tech," Cousart says, flashing a grin. To determine if a celebrity is back in town, if accessible, he'll put a penny on the tire of their car in their driveway or shove a stick in their garage door. If either has fallen, it's a clue they've returned."It's a little bit of 'MacGyver,' " he cracks.The palm-greased paparazzi world depends on blabbering employees of restaurants, stores, salons, limo companies and yes, celebs, and at times JFX shells out $100 for a phone tip, Huapaya says. Mostly he and Cousart try to work connections: an acquaintance at the Auto Club used to run license plates for them. Lately, when they can't obtain celebrity addresses, they follow chauffeured stars home from appearances on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" and "Ellen" to find out where they live.Critics call them "stalkerazzi." Cousart calls it a job and contends his vilifiers are the same folks ogling their photos in magazines. As for the hounded stars: "Let me have your bank account and you can follow me around all day."Nothing illegalCousart is on his ever-beeping cell. A tipster at American Airlines faxed over the daily passenger manifest to his office and it shows Mandy Moore flew in last night. Cousart will dispatch one of his men to stake out Moore's Los Feliz home – he's been trying to get photos of her with "Scrubs" beau Zach Braff.Soon, Cousart and Huapaya jump on the 405 Freeway and barrel toward Brentwood, where they briefly stop near Affleck and Garner's gated manor (one of their photogs futilely followed the couple house-hunting the day before and is planted outside). Then, it's a swing past Jim Carrey and John Travolta's nearby estates to size up any action. Huapaya once drove past Courteney Cox's home on her birthday and noticed a large production truck in her driveway.After the "Friends" star, her actor-husband David Arquette and guests loaded into the truck, Huapaya trailed them to Magic Mountain and surreptitiously snapped them on the Tidal Wave roller-coaster.Another time, he fired off frames of Lara Flynn Boyle washing her car in the driveway before she noticed him and fled inside.Screen Actors Guild president Alan Rosenberg describes the paparazzi shadowing as "creepy." He says his wife, Marg Helgenberger of "CSI", has been without makeup walking the dog when a dark van pulls up and a lens points out the window.But prosecutor Hodgman says there is nothing inherently illegal about paparazzi staking out celebrities, following them and photographing them in a public place.Privacy is the price of fame, Rosenberg concedes. "We all know when we decide to do this as a profession, this is part of the deal."
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