‘Apprentice’ sues Trump for defamation
> Suit claims he lied when responding to sexual misconduct allegations
LOS ANGELES: Donald Trump was hit with a defamation lawsuit on Tuesday by a former contestant on his reality television show The Apprentice, who had previously accused him of sexual misconduct.
Summer Zervos’s lawsuit claims the president-elect lied when responding to allegations that he tried to kiss and grope her without her consent when they met to discuss “career opportunities” at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Los Angeles in 2007.
Trump is a “liar and misogynist” who has “debased and denigrated Zervos with false statements about her”, the lawsuit says.
The Republican president-elect, who faced a spate of sexual misconduct accusations in the weeks leading up to the election, has previously denied any wrongdoing and vowed to sue the more than a dozen women behind the claims.
“All of these liars will be sued after the election is over,” he said at a Pennsylvania rally in October. He has yet to file suit.
Zervos’s attorney Gloria Allred said her client – who previously said she would not take any legal action against the presidentelect if he did not sue and if he retracted his comments had a change of heart as Trump has shown no remorse for his alleged behaviour and had “lied” further to cover it up.
The attorney said her 42-year-old client had passed a lie detector test concerning her allegations before filing the suit.
“It takes a great deal of courage to sue the most powerful man on the planet,” Allred told reporters at a news conference in Los Angeles, adding Zervos was well aware of the risks she was taking by going after Trump. “No one is above the law,” she said. In a statement read to reporters, Zervos said she would be willing to drop the case if Trump agreed to retract his comments about her and if he acknowledged she had told the truth about their encounter.
Should Zervos’s case go to trial, it could open a can of worms for Trump as it may lead to the release of long-sought outtakes from his 14 seasons on The Apprentice.
“We would certainly seek any and all information and documents, recordings etc, which may be relevant to the litigation of our lawsuit,” Allred said.
Zervos is asking for unspecified compensatory and punitive damages should her suit go to trial. – AFP