Karen McDougal attends Playboy's Super Saturday Night Party at Sagamore Hotel in 2010, in Miami Beach, Florida.
Dimitrios Kambouris / Getty Images
A former Playboy model who claims she had a 10-month affair with Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit to be released from a 2016 agreement to stay silent.
Like adult film actor Stephanie Clifford, better known as Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougal is arguing that her contract to not discuss her alleged relationship with Trump is invalid and she should be allowed to make her case in public court, not private arbitration.
McDougal is suing American Media Inc. (AMI) — the owner of the National Enquirer and Us Weekly — which paid her $150,000 in 2016 for the rights to her story, including claims that she had a relationship with Trump from 2006 to 2007.
However, the media company never published the story, and McDougal claims Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, was secretly involved in negotiations with AMI, whose chief executive is a friend of the president.
AMI has a reputation for buying rights to and then burying stories that might damage allies of the company's chief executive, David J. Pecker.
The agreement was amended for "legitimate press inquiries," but every time a journalist has reached out to McDougal, she alleges in her lawsuit that AMI has forced her to remain silent as they feed the journalists "false information."
McDougal alleges in her lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court that she was pressured by all parties, including her own lawyer, to sign the agreement, which included a promise to help jumpstart her career as a health and fitness model. Under the agreement, AMI was allegedly required to run more than 100 editorial pieces and at least two covers featuring her as part of campaign to promote her fitness model career.
"The lawsuit filed today aims to restore [McDougal's] right to her own voice," McDougal's new lawyer, Peter K. Stris, said in a statement to the New York Times. "We intend to invalidate the so-called contract that American Media Inc. imposed on Karen so she can move forward with the private life she deserves."
Representatives for AMI did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit.
The McDougal filing is just the latest legal woe to hit the Trump camp in recent weeks as the Daniels scandal consumes more oxygen.
A state judge in Manhattan on Tuesday ruled that a lawsuit by Summer Zervos, a former contestant on The Apprentice who has made public accusations against Trump during the campaign about "unwanted sexual misconduct," can go forward. She's suing Trump for defamation regarding comments he made about her during the campaign.
Meanwhile, in addition to suing Trump, Daniels' in depth interview with Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes is scheduled to air March 25 unless the president's lawyers block it first.
Read McDougal's lawsuit here:
from BuzzFeed - USNews http://ift.tt/2u2xru2
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