FAME PICTURES

The Los Angeles District Attorney's Office has taken a pass on Sean Penn.

Allegations that the Oscar winner kicked and slugged a paparazzo who tried to snap a few shots of Penn at the Brentwood Country Mart have been referred to to the L.A. City Attorney's Office for consideration after prosecutors concluded that Penn's actions didn't constitute a felony.

The City Attorney's Office will determine whether the Milk star should face misdemeanor charges.

Shutterbug Jordan Dawes filed a battery report against Penn early last month, saying the hotheaded actor came at him kicking and screaming when he started taking photos of him from 50 feet away.

"I'm all bruised up…I empathize with the photographers now, I really do," Dawes told E! News at the time. "It's horrifying."

We say no wonder Penn keeps fleeing for places like Cuba.

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Whether you agree with Sean Penn's politics or not, he's convinced he's doing good, just like the celebs in our Do-Gooder Gallery.

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One of Hollywood's most vociferous liberals, Sean Penn, is back doing his favorite thing: riling Americans with his controversial travels. (Or is his favorite thing getting nominated for Oscars? It's a toss-up.)

The two-time Academy Award winner has embarked on a short trip to Cuba as a journalist on assignment for Vanity Fair and The Huffington Post.

Rumor has it he's there to interview Fidel Castro; however, his rep tells E! News the actor has no set plans to meet with former Cuban leader.

But that's not to say they won't meet up...

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Life is like a box of chocolates...and Robin Wright Penn is going through a bunch of icky crème-filled ones right now. Or something like that.

The Forrest Gump star and soon-to-be former Mrs. Sean Penn opens up in the November issue of Redbook about her pending divorce from her Oscar-winning hubby and the new life that awaits her and the couple's children, daughter Dylan, 18, and son Hopper, 16.

"It never [feels good]," she says of the uncoupling, which has been playing in the tabloids after several unsuccessful attempts at reconciliation.

"Yes, it's divorce; it's a given that it will be public. But...it's so disrespectful. 'You're an actress, you owe us this?' F--k you is what I say."

And that's not all she says...

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The paparazzo in the alleged Sean Penn scuffle is not taking his supposed altercation with the actor lying down. 

Photographer and self-proclaimed documentarian Jordan Dawes spoke to E! News exclusively about his alleged beat-down Friday afternoon, for which he filed a police report against the Oscar winner. 

According to Dawes, he and four other photographers and videographers were waiting at the Brentwood Country Mart for the Milk star that afternoon. When Penn got out of his car, the photog started snapping pictures of the actor from his vehicle, which he claims was parked about 50 feet away from Penn. 

When Dawes got out of his car and started taking photos of Penn, that's when Penn approached him, the photog said. 

"He beelined it for me and started kicking me in the legs," Dawes said. "As I was backing away, I was still shooting. Then he got me to the other side of the street and punched me in the arm and in my camera."

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On the bright side, it looks like Sean Penn's pretty limber for a guy pushing 50.

But about that high kick to a paparazzo...

Flynet Pictures is claiming that the two-time Oscar winner "attacked" one of its shooters. Penn, the agency alleges, "emerged from his truck and walked over 50 feet towards the photog and kicked and punched him without provocation.

"Penn also berated the photog with obscenities and shouted that he would 'put you in a box' to the photog before going back to his house."

The photog "suffered multiple cuts and bruises from the attack, has filed a police report and is considering pressing charges for battery."

No word on whether a lawsuit is in the works, but in cases like this, a police report can be a precursor to a civil action.

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StarTracks

What a weekend for New Yorkers!

With the MTV Video Music Awards, Fashion Week, the U.S. Open and all the star-studded parties that come with them, so much fun stuff went down.

Let's start with the leggy.

Newly separated (again!) Sean Penn stepped out with Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Jessica White to celebrate fellow catwalker Noemie Lenoir's birthday at new hot spot Abe & Arthur's on Saturday night.

The following evening, Jay-Z's sleek VMAs afterparty took over 1Oak and included guests from Rihanna and Beyoncé to Justin Timberlake and Jessica Alba.

Outside, however, things took a dustier turn when Diddy had a "misunderstanding," as his rep tells E! News, with some cops. Worry not, the NYPD says no arrests were made, and all related parties seem to think the situation was "blown out of proportion."

Elsewhere...

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AP Photo/Chris Pizzello

The other shoe has dropped. A day after being quoted saying she was "too old for this s--t" and declaring she wouldn't be reconciling with Sean Penn, we've learned that Robin Wright Penn has indeed filed for the Big D.

The paperwork was submitted Aug. 12 in Marin County, Calif., E! News has confirmed, with Wright Penn blaming "irreconcilable differences" on the demise of the nearly 13-year union.

It's not like they didn't try.

In May, Penn withdrew the couple's second petition in as many years to split up, calling it an "arrogant mistake" on his part, and in June he dropped out of two films to focus on family matters.

But in an interview in the September issue of More, Wright Penn revealed the attempt to make nice didn't take, and that she and Penn were done for good.

"There's no limbo anymore. There's no time. I'm too old for this s--t," she said.

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•  Those dastardly lad mags have made Megan Fox No. 2 yet again! First, Maxim places Olivia Wilde just ahead of the starlet, and now the Transformers hottie loses to British babe Cheryl Cole (from the group Girls Aloud) for the FHM title.

•  Robin Wright Penn opened up to a psychology magazine just before her latest round of off-again, on-again union with husband Sean Penn. "All marriages have their cycles and phases," she said forebodingly.

•  Paris Hilton was peeved when her bodyguards supposedly found some sort of recording transmitter in her Dubai hotel room. In the meantime, the BFF seeker may be in a little hot water for donning a bikini in the conservative Arab nation.

•  All kinds of TV babies are on their way! Scrubs star Judy Reyes and her boyfriend, director George Valencia, are expecting their first child. Additionally, 24 and HawthoRNe actor D.B. Woodside and gal-pal Golden Brooks, of Girlfriends fame, are anticipating a child together, due in September.

•  Amy Winehouse may be beachy keen on moving to St. Lucia for good.

•  Dear Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal: You two are cute enough as it is. Is it really necessary to match for your workouts? Love, Rise 'n' Shine

All this drama calls for a refreshing trip through the pretty Beach Bodies gallery.

We're hot too...on Twitter @eonline!

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So it's the weekend already! Although, really, it couldn't have come fast enough for us. Robert Pattinson can only have so many brushes with death, David Letterman can apologize only so many times and Brangelina can donate only so much money before we declare it a day and retire to our caves with the first season of True Blood and a case of Mike's Hard Lemonade.

Here's what else haunted our dreams last week...

1. We might stop talking about Heidi and Spencer. Seinfeld pulled off being about nothing, but the hourglass has about run out on the Pratts' vacuous run. Al Roker votes yea, but sometimes Speidi are fun for all the wrong reasons, so you still have plenty of time to state your case before a final ruling is announced Monday during E! News.
2. This is getting serious. Ladies, you know Robert Pattinson isn't really immortal, right? At this rate, he may not make it to the Twilight-mad Teen Choice Awards in one piece! And then who would Kristen Stewart spend all her time yearning for?!
3. David Letterman threw himself under the bus and offered up a more sober apology to Sarah Palin, who accepted the Late Show host's kinder mea culpa. And yet people still protested the poor schlub!
4. The next episode of Jon & Kate Plus 8 will feature a "special announcement." We're thinking divorce, but isn't that what TLC wants us to think? Won't we feel silly when it turns out they're just planning a trip to Mall of America or something. Mom and dad did spend a few minutes together, after all...
5. A couple of cops in Ohio are being investigated for allegedly breaking into the home of the woman who's carrying Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick's baby in order to dig up tabloid dirt. Have you no shame, sirs?

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FAME PICTURES

If there's anyone who might just want to focus on his family for awhile, it's Sean Penn.

The Oscar-winning star has pulled out of his next two scheduled film projects, including the Farrelly brothers' Three Stooges update, E! News confirmed Tuesday.

Penn, who has broken up and made up with wife Robin Wright Penn twice over the past 18 months, recently wrapped the true-story CIA drama Fair Game, in which he played the husband of outed agent Valerie Plame.

But instead of starring as a prosecutor who goes after the mob in the drama Cartel and then taking on the role of Larry Fine in the Stooges comedy this fall, alongside the dream team of Benicio Del Toro and Jim Carrey as Moe and Curly Howard...Penn is taking a break.

Not that he wouldn't have taken a bottle to the head later. 

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