$165G to cook the OJ Simpson case? How much do you think Harvey Levin and TMZ paid to a corrupt LA Sheriff's insider for the Mel Gibson story?

We've been talking for years now about the fishy dealings of the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com on its sleazy, sordid, palm-greasing, source-lubing astroglide to success, not the least of which was the way Harvey Levin and his street urchins perverted justice in the latest OJ Simpson case. We'd reported back in September that they'd paid for the audiotape of his hotel room confrontation, and today The Smoking Gun reports it was $165,000 to help get its inconsequential whitewashed syndicated television version off the ground.

Which leads us to ask how much they paid and who they paid in the LA County Sheriff's Department for all that inside dirt on Mel Gibson's drink driving arrest. We were saying "follow the money" in August 2006. Hey, we watch The Wire.