JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) – Juvenile has been cleared in a lawsuit claiming the rapper was responsible for an off-duty police officer injuring her knee while trying to break up a mall fight involving the rapper in 1999.

Following a weeklong trial, a six-member jury ruled in favor of the New Orleans-based rapper Thursday.

“We got them, we got them, we got them,” said the rapper, whose real name is Terius Gray. “Just the fact that it’s a rap artist against the police, that never happens. Rappers never win. We never win against the police or the government.”

Fred Abbott, an attorney for the officer, Melissa Huxley-Bujeda, said he will file a motion for a new trial or an appeal.

“It was a travesty of justice,” Abbott said. “One day justice will prevail.”

The rapper and some friends were asked to leave Regency Square mall July 23, 1999, because their dress and language were in violation of mall policies, according to the lawsuit. When the group began using profanity, Huxley-Bujeda was called to issue a trespass warning. A scuffle broke out and Huxley-Bujeda said she injured her knee while trying to control Juvenile.

The rapper was arrested on charges of breach of the peace and resisting an officer with violence. The charges were later dropped.

Huxley-Bujeda filed the lawsuit four years later claiming she has had four surgeries and racked up $68,635 in medical bills. Juvenile’s attorneys said Huxley-Bujeda suffered from degenerative arthritis and had hurt her knees about 35 times as a child from sports.

Abbott said her prior injuries were to her right knee and the basis of the lawsuit was her left knee.

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SYDNEY, Australia (AP) – Cate Blanchett hinted Friday that her acting career may take a back seat to her new role as the artistic director of a leading Sydney theater company.

The Oscar-winning actress and her playwright husband, Andrew Upton, have agreed to become co-artistic directors of the Sydney Theater Company starting in January 2008.

“The acceptance for the role of co-artistic director of this company is not a dalliance,” Blanchett told reporters in Sydney on Friday, after officially accepting the position.

“It’s an absolutely firm commitment, and it is not one that Andrew nor myself have made lightly,” she said.

The Australian-born actress said the artistic director role would become her new full-time job, although she and Upton would be free for three months each year to pursue their own projects.

“Sometimes I may take that up and sometimes I may not,” Blanchett said. “Obviously, as and when situations come up, I will seriously consider it if they lure me away from what frankly is the most exciting thing that has ever happened to us, apart from marriage and the children.”

Blanchett and Upton, who have two small children, will write and act with the Sydney Theater Company, and will steer its programming.

The actress – who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Katharine Hepburn in “The Aviator” – repeatedly sold out performances in the company’s 2004 production of Henrik Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler,” adapted by Upton. Her latest film, “Babel,” is currently in theaters.

Blanchett is already slated to direct “Blackbird” by Scottish playwright David Harrower next year, while Upton’s new play, “Riflemind,” will be directed by Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman.

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BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) – Mickey Rooney, Pat Boone and Shannen Doherty helped kick off a fundraising campaign to restore an Indiana high school that will become the James Dean Performing Arts Center and Museum.

The celebrities gathered Thursday at the posh Spago restaurant to announce the campaign. Officials hope to collect $6 million to renovate Fairmount High School in Fairmount, Ind., where Dean was first exposed to acting.

“Our mission is to create a living tribute to the Rebel Without a Cause, and in the process preserve a beautiful and important building,” Boone said in a statement.

Among the improvements will be refurbishing the original stage, auditorium and classrooms as well as creating an exhibit of Dean memorabilia.

Dean made only a handful of movies before he was killed when the silver Porsche Spyder he was driving collided with another vehicle near rural Cholame, Calif., on Sept. 30, 1955. He was 24.

The high school has been empty for about 20 years, said Cal Oren, a spokesman for the nonprofit Fairmount Foundation, which is overseeing the fundraising effort.

Some minor work has been done to the building, but millions of dollars will have to be raised in order for the new venue to be opened.

“We think this is an appropriate tribute to James Dean,” Oren said.

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PIERRE, S.D. (AP) – The South Dakota Supreme Court has backed Kevin Costner in a legal battle over a Deadwood casino he owns, ruling that the actor-director doesn’t have to sell his share in the business to sever his relationship with two partners.

Costner wants to become the sole owner of the Midnight Star, an eating and gambling establishment where costumes Costner wore in various movies line the walls.

Costner owns 93.5 percent of the casino. He hired Francis and Carla Caneva to manage the operation and gave them ownership of 6.5 percent. He fired them in July 2004, asking them to part ways as partners, and dissolved the partnership when they declined.

The court dispute centered on the value of the casino. An accountant hired by Costner put its value at $3.1 million, but the Canevas got another Deadwood casino owner to testify that he would pay $6.2 million. A judge ordered that Costner must buy the Midnight Star for the higher amount or it would be sold on the open market.

Costner appealed, arguing the value wasn’t derived from a hypothetical buyer and seller, as is required by the IRS, and that the value was set without viewing any financial documents. The Supreme Court agreed Thursday that the lower court used the wrong standard to determine the property’s value.

The justices said the property must be revalued but need not be sold. If the casino is determined to be worth no more than the $4.9 million Costner has put into it, the Canevas will not be entitled to any money, his lawyer said.

Costner, 51, filmed much of 1990’s “Dances With Wolves,” which won the Academy Award for best picture, on South Dakota’s plains and in the Black Hills, where Deadwood is located.

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SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) – Andy Garcia’s “The Lost City,” a tale of his native Cuba, opened a film festival in the Dominican Republic this week.

“The Lost City” is set largely at a lavish, colorful Havana nightclub just before and soon after Fidel Castro came to power. Garcia plays club owner Fico Fellove, whose passion for music is balanced by his complete apathy over his country’s tumultuous politics in the late 1950s.

The film, which also stars Dustin Hoffman and Bill Murray, was shot in the Dominican Republic.

Garcia, 50, was joined by President Leonel Fernandez and Dominican slugger Sammy Sosa at the Dominican Republic Global Film Festival on Wednesday.

Asked what he hoped would happen in Cuba over the next year, Garcia said: “I could only have the hope we have all had for 47 years: that the promise of a revolution of democracy will come true. That’s what the revolution was about until it was betrayed.”

Garcia, who was nominated for an Oscar for his role in 1990’s “The Godfather: Part III,” has also appeared in “The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca” and “Night Falls on Manhattan.”

Other films scheduled to be shown at the festival, which continues through Sunday, include “Good Night, and Good Luck,” “The Last King of Scotland,” “Babel” and “Mad Hot Ballroom,” according to festival’s Web site.