[ad_1]
A dispute over a sealed legal complaint filed by an old center model that allegedly had an affair with Elliott Broidy, a wealthy Republican donor, led to a vindictive hype on social media and in an audience room Los Angeles Tuesday, with opposition lawyers blaming each other for lies and scandalous behavior.
The lawsuit, filed Friday by Shera Bechard, Miss Playboy's November 2010, comes on the heels of a Wall Street Journal report last week that Broidy had stopped making the required payments on an agreement non-disclosure of $ 1.6 million that he concluded with Bechard an.
Broidy, who resigned from his post of finance co-chair for the Republican National Committee after the alleged case went public in April, was represented in the case by Michael Cohen, the long-time personal attorney of President Donald Trump.
"I admit having a consensual relationship with Playboy Playmate," Broidy said in a statement to ABC News in April. "At the end of our relationship, this woman shared with me that she was pregnant.She alone decided that she did not want to continue the pregnancy and offered to help her." financially during this difficult period, we have not spoken since then, "the statement said.
Broidy claims that the confidentiality of the case was violated by Keith Davidson, Bechard's former attorney, who allegedly shared key details of the deal with Michael Avenatti, the star's attorney from adult cinema, Stephanie Clifford, known professionally as Stormy Daniels.
Davidson had previously represented Daniels in 2016 when she negotiated a $ 130,000 settlement with Cohen during an alleged sexual encounter with Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in 2006. The president denied allegations of an affair.
After Broidy ceased making payments – Bechard filed a lawsuit against Broidy, Davidson and Avenatti. The specific allegations in the sealed trial have not yet been made public.
AP Tuesday morning, while Avenatti was entering a Los Angeles courthouse to plead a motion to unblock the complaint and to require that he receive a copy of the trial – the attorney for Bechard, Peter Stris, tweeted to Avenatti that "putting lies in legal documents does not make them true". Stris wrote that the "Avenatti media side-show is a shame".
Avenatti – from inside the corridors of the Los Angeles Superior Court – retaliated at Stris – calling Bechard's chief attorney a "disgrace to the profession" and claiming that Stris was using Avenatti "as a pawn to take advantage of Broidy.
"Why do not you use me with the complaint?" Avenatti wrote in response to Stris. "Either serve me or send me back, and tell the American public what happened."
Eduardo Munoz Alvarez / Getty Images He told reporters outside the room hearing that Davidson had given details on Broidy's agreement with Bechard last spring. deal became public in a Wall Street Journal article. Avenatti acknowledged that after talking with Davidson, he sent a tweet revealing some details about the arrangement, but denied that he was a source for the article.
"[Davidson] did not say that the agreement was confidential.He did not say that I should not say anything about it," said Avenatti. "I owed him no duty, never told him to keep it confidential, and I owed him nothing – his beef belongs to Mr. Davidson."
A Davidson spokesman told ABC News earlier this month that Davidson "has never violated any agreement or confidentiality of the client in this case.Any accusation to the contrary is false and defamatory."
Appearing on Tuesday before Ernest Hiroshige Judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court, Avenatti argued that he had been "[traduction]" deliberately ambushed "by Bechard's attorneys at the trial. He argued that the complaint should be disclosed to the public and that he could not effectively challenge the charges against him without receiving a copy of the complaint.
A Bechard attorney, Victor O. Connell, retorted that the decision not to serve the claim on Avenatti was motivated by the fact that he was afraid to disclose portions of the complaint.
Avenatti, O. Connell argued, "is notorious for the media leak."
Marvin Putman – a Broidy lawyer – told the judge that his client backed the existing order to seal the case for 20 days, calling the decision "perfect."
Judge Hiroshige also heard the arguments of Kelli Sager, a lawyer for seven media organizations, including ABC News, who claimed that there was no legitimate reason to keep the trial sealed – being given that many details of the non-disclosure agreement already made public.
Alex J. Berliner / ABImages by AP FILE Hiroshige finally decided to keep the trial under seal for the time being, but ordered Bechard's lawyers to immediately provide Avenatti with a copy of the complaint.
During a break in the proceedings, Avenatti was sitting alone on a bench in a hallway of the courtroom, reading the complaint on his mobile phone, frequently shaking his head while scrolling through the documents.
He later stated that he had the intention to comply with the court order to keep the record sealed. He refused to reveal the details of what he had read, but took another parting in pursuit of Bechard.
"It's completely baseless," he told reporters outside the courtroom. "They know they're playing a game." In the end, they should have filed this complaint on the public record, distributed it to each one of you and let the American people decide who is telling the truth and who is lying, it is as simple as that.
"We will continue to fight against people who want to hide all this conduct, which is not appropriate, especially with so much at stake," he said.
Chris Clark, a Broidy lawyer, did not respond to an email from ABC News asking for comments on the lawsuit.
ABC News & # 39; Cassidy Gard contributed to this report.
Source link
