Jeff Bezos desires $1.7 million from his girlfriend’s brother to cover legal charges the world’s second-richest individual racked up effectively defending a defamation lawsuit.
Lauren Sanchez’s brother, Michael Sanchez, sued Bezos and his safety consultant, Gavin de Becker, claiming they defamed him by telling journalists that Michael had been the supply of nude photographs of Bezos that have been leaked to the National Enquirer. The case was thrown out for the reason that Michael Sanchez’s only proof was that he had heard that from journalists.
Michael Sanchez betrayed his sister and Bezos by promoting their private communications to the tabloid for $200,000 and then doubled down by filing a lawsuit, intended to harass Bezos into a settlement “by threatening discovery and public disclosure of private matters,” Bezos, with a net worth of $193 billion, stated in his request filed Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court.
“Mr. Bezos’s fee request is obscene, even grotesque, on many levels,” Tom Warren, an lawyer for Michael Sanchez, stated in an e-mail.
A California state judge in November threw out Sanchez’s lawsuit beneath a state law that makes it possible for for expedited dismissal of baseless lawsuits more than protected speech. Under the anti-Slapp statute, the prevailing defendant is entitled to have legal expenses reimbursed by the plaintiff.
Bezos went public in 2019 with what he stated was an extortion try by the National Enquirer. He stated it had threatened to publish more particulars of his partnership with Lauren Sanchez as effectively as revealing photographs if he did not cease investigating what had prompted a January 2019 expose about their affair although Bezos was nonetheless married to MacKenzie Scott. They divorced in 2019.
The case is Sanchez v. Bezos, 20ST-cv-04212, California Superior Court, Los Angeles County.
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