Blackmail claim investigated
The National Enquirer’s alleged attempt to blackmail Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos with intimate photos could get the tabloid’s parent company and top editors in deep legal trouble and reopen them to prosecution for paying hush money to a Playboy model who claimed she had an affair with Donald Trump.
US federal prosecutors are looking at whether the Enquirer’s feud with Bezos violated a cooperation and non-prosecution agreement that recently spared the gossip sheet from charges in the hush-money case, two people familiar with the matter said.
The clash between the world’s richest man and America’s most aggressive supermarket tabloid spilled into public view on Friday when Bezos accused it of threatening to print photos of him and the woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair.
He said the Enquirer made two demands: stop investigating how it recently obtained private messages that Bezos and his girlfriend had exchanged, and publicly declare that the tabloid’s coverage of Bezos was not politically motivated.
Enquirer owner American Media Inc (AMI) said yesterday that its board of directors had ordered a prompt and thorough investigation and would take ‘‘whatever appropriate action is necessary’’. Earlier in the day, the company said it ‘‘acted lawfully’’ while reporting the story and engaged in ‘‘good-faith negotiations’’ with Bezos.
In recent months, the Trumpfriendly tabloid acknowledged secretly assisting Trump’s White House campaign by paying US$150,000 to Playboy centrefold Karen McDougal for the rights to her story about an alleged affair with Trump. The company then buried the story until after the 2016 election.
Trump’s longtime personal attorney and fixer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty last year to charges that included helping to broker that transaction. Federal prosecutors considered the payment an illegal corporate contribution to Trump’s campaign.
In September, AMI reached an agreement with federal authorities that spared it from prosecution. It promised in the agreement not to break any laws. The deal also required the continuing cooperation of top AMI executives, including CEO David Pecker and Enquirer editor Dylan Howard.
A violation of the agreement could lead to criminal charges over the McDougal payments – and the resulting court proceedings could lay bare details of the Enquirer’s cosy relationship with the president.
The tabloid and top executives could also be subject to state and federal extortion and coercion charges and prosecution under New York City’s revenge porn law, passed last year, legal experts said.
Carrie Goldberg, a Brooklyn lawyer representing revenge porn and sex crime victims, said Bezos’ account laid out a clear case of criminal coercion.
It is a federal crime to threaten to injure someone’s reputation in exchange for money or a ‘‘thing of value’’, though federal courts haven’t made it clear whether a public statement, like the one allegedly demanded by AMI, could be considered something of value. Bezos said the Enquirer did not demand money.
Former New York federal prosecutor Jennifer Rodgers said prosecutors were probably weighing the pros and cons of keeping the cooperation agreement in place. The agreement secured Pecker’s testimony in any future cases stemming from the hush-money payments, while winning a criminal case over the Bezos matter would be far from clear-cut, she said.
The Bezos camp has suggested that the Enquirer’s coverage of his affair was driven by dirty politics. Trump himself has criticised Bezos on Twitter over his ownership of The Washington Post and Amazon.
Bezos’ affair became public when the Enquirer ran a January 9 story about him and Lauren Sanchez, a former TV anchor who is also married.
Bezos then hired private investigators to find out how the tabloid got texts and photos the two had exchanged. The investigators have been focusing on Sanchez’s brother.
Bezos detailed his blackmail allegations in an extraordinary blog post. The intimate photos at issue include a ‘‘below the belt selfie’’ of Bezos and several revealing photos of Sanchez, according to emails Bezos released of his exchanges with AMI. –AP