Roy Moore says Sacha Baron Cohen defamed him, seeks damages
SACHA Baron Cohen, CBS Corp. and Showtime Networks were sued by former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, who claims the satirist tricked him into appearing on his “Who Is America?” show and then made him look like a paedophile and sex offender.
The lawsuit was filed on Wednesday in federal court in Washington with claims of defamation and fraud. It seeks US$ 95 million in damages.
Moore says in his complaint that he’s “suffered extreme emotional distress” by being “falsely portrayed, mocked and defamed as a sex offender and paedophile.”
In “Who Is America?” Baron Cohen adopted personas such as a far-right conspiracy theorist and an ex- convict while interviewing political figures including Vice President Dick Cheney, former presidential candidate Jill Stein and congressman Dana Rohrabacher. Many of the interview subjects later criticised Baron Cohen for misleading them.
Showtime, a CBS unit, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Moore says Cohen and his agents lured him onto the programme in February just two months after the Republican judge was narrowly defeated in his race for the US Senate seat in Alabama.
He was dogged by allegations in the election that he’d inappropriately touched under- aged girls while he was in his 30s, which he denied.
Moore claims he was told the appearance was sought by an Israeli programme called Yerushalayim TV and that during it he’d receive an award for his strong support of Israel, spurring him and his wife to fly to Washington. Yerushalayim TV turned out to be fictional.
Once there, Cohen — in character as former Israeli antiterrorism agent Erran Morad — mocked Moore and even subjected him to scanning with a fake army device meant to detect paedophiles. The programme, which aired July 29, was televised over Moore’s subsequent protests to CBS once he learned the truth.
Baron Cohen is no stranger to controversy. The British comedian has had his greatest successes inhabiting personas such as wannabe rapper Ali G, Kazakh journalist Borat and the gay Austrian fashionista Bruno. Two college students sued Baron Cohen over his film“Bo rat ,” while a charity worker sued him over his film“Bruno .”
Moore is represented by conservative political activist Larry Klayman.