Model’s passport to trouble
A banker is a asking a Manhattan judge to dismiss his ex-girlfriend’s defamation lawsuit against him — claiming that social-media photos of the model in Nice and Monte Carlo prove she lied in court papers saying she had no passport.
Ukrainian stunner Christina Matthaus was arrested in 2014 after her then-boyfriend, Michael Hadjedj, told cops she went on a $5,000 shopping spree using his American Express card.
Hadjedj said in a recent deposition that he thought he was doing Matthaus a favor by dropping the charges, but then she sued him for defamation, claiming the negative publicity surrounding her arrest caused her to lose gigs, including a coveted Maxim magazine cover.
Her 2014 defamation suit says law-enforcement officials took her passport during the criminal case, barring her from traveling abroad for lucrative photo shoots.
But Matthaus’ Tumblr account shows her poolside in Monte Carlo, Monaco, at the airport in Nice, France, and lunching in Saint-Tropez, France, Hadjedj argues.
“Plaintiff ’s passport was never confiscated, and she spent the months following her arrest, travel- ing and frolicking throughout the Mediterranean on yachts and private planes and posting photographs on social media,” Hadjedj wrote in court papers.
“Indeed, between the time of her arrest and the end of 2014, plaintiff traveled to: Munich, Cannes, Monte Carlo, Paris, Toronto, Turks and Caicos, Aspen, St. Lucia, Milan, Ibiza, Saint-Tropez, Jakarta, Bali, Mexico City, Stras-bourg, Dusseldorf, Istanbul, andd Miami,” Hadjedj wrote.
Matthaus’ attorney, Davidd Jaroslawicz, took responsibility for the false claim. He told The Post that he confused the circumstances of Matthaus’ arrest with those of another client whose travel documents were seized, and that he corrected thee error as soon as he caught it.
But, Hadjedj said, the pass-port claim “was not the only al-legation in the [suit] that wass shown to be bogus.”
Matthaus said in her deposi-tion “that she was not in pos-session of defendant’s Amex card when she attempted to make these purchases,” he claimed, for items at Bergdorf Goodman, tickets from Lufthansa, and clothes from the shopping site Net-a-Porter.