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We knew something just didn't sit right with us when we previously noted Omar Sharif's racist beating of a Mastro's steakhouse valet. At a Beverly Hills courthouse hearing yesterday, the Lawrence of Arabia star's lawyer, legendary celebrity crusader Martin Singer, nobly cleared his absent client's name:

Actor Omar Sharif pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges that he assaulted a valet who refused to accept his European currency. [...]


Sharif was belligerent and intoxicated and called the valet a "stupid Mexican" when he refused to accept a 20 euro note, the lawsuit claimed. [...]

One of Sharif's lawyers, Martin Singer, has said the actor didn't hit the valet and was being targeted because he's famous.

We are relieved and heartened that in Singer, we finally have someone with the courage and conviction to stand up to the one Hollywood mafia so feared they are rarely referred to by name: the Valets. Clearly this was a case of an opportunistic hoodlum, who in his relentless fame-targeting cunningly allowed bigger, younger stars to pass through without incident for months before preying on a frail, aged foreigner with a barely functioning knowledge of local bartering customs and whose fading celebrity would draw little public notice. Nice try, red-jacket racketeers, but Singer's got you all figured out.

UPDATE: A well-placed operative informs us that although Martin
Singer is one of Sharif's attorneys, he wasn't at the courthouse yesterday.