Jeff Bezos is asking his girlfriend’s brother to pay $ 1.7 million legal after successfully defending a defamation lawsuit.
Bezos, the richest person in the world with a net worth of $ 193 billion according to Forbes, was sued by Michael Sanchez in February 2019.
Sanchez, a 54-year-old Hollywood talent agent, accused Bezos, 57, and his security adviser, Gavin de Becker, of damaging his reputation by telling reporters he had leaked nude photos to The National Enquirer.
In November, Judge John P. Doyle of the Los Angeles County Superior Court dismissed the case, saying Sanchez’s allegations were largely dependent on rumors.
Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez see each other in January 2020. Their relationship was revealed by The National Enquirer in January 2019
Michael Sanchez, a Hollywood talent agent, was the source of the report, AMI said
Bezos, in his court records, said he never accused Sanchez of leaking the photos.
On Friday, the founder of Amazon, who is in a back-and-forth meeting with Elon Musk for the title of richest person in the world, asked Sanchez to pay his legal fees.
Under a California law known as anti-SLAPP statute, a winning defendant has the right to have the plaintiff reimburse his court costs.
Bezos, in his Friday presentation, said Sanchez betrayed his sister and he, selling his private communications to the newspaper for $ 200,000.
Bezos accused him of duplicating himself then by filing a lawsuit, intended to harass Bezos in an agreement “threatening the discovery and public disclosure of private matters.”
Sanchez’s attorney, Tom Warren, told Bloomberg (which first reported Friday’s filing) that the billionaire’s request was “grotesque.”
“Bezos’ fee application is obscene, even grotesque, on many levels, ”he said.
In November, Warren said Sanchez intended to appeal Judge Doyle’s sentence.
“We do not respectfully respect the judgment of the trial court and we hope to be able to vindicate Sánchez’s claims on appeal,” he said at the time.
It was unclear if they intended to appeal.
Patrick Whitesell, Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos at a Hollywood party in December 2016
Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos at the Vanity Fair post-Oscars party in March 2018
The notable family breakup began in January 2019, when tabloid magazine revealed the affair between Bezos and Lauren Sanchez, who were still married at the time, although she was separated from her husband, Patrick Whitesell, a talented executive agent. of Hollywood.
On January 9, Bezos and his then-wife, MacKenzie, parents of four children, announced that they were divorcing after 25 years of marriage.
The next print edition of The Enquirer was not scheduled for publication for several days, and its editors, according to the Wall Street Journal, published Bezos’ story that night online and printed it with a headline: ” BEZOS “DIVORCE! THE PHOTOS OF DISEASES THAT ENDED THEIR MARRIAGE ».
The magazine printed text messages and photos of the couple in public, but not the nude photos.
Donald Trump, who has a long-standing fury in Bezos for his newspaper, the Washington Post, and his business, tweeted on Jan. 13: “I’m sorry to hear the news that Jeff Bozo was overthrown by a whose competitor I understand the information, I understand, is much more accurate than the reports in his pressure newspaper, the Amazon Washington Post.
Bezos asked Becker to analyze who leaked the text messages.
The CEO of the parent company of the AMI newspaper, David Pecker, was infuriated with the investigation and emailed Bezos (via Becker’s lawyer) on February 5, 2019, threatening to publish ten nude or personal photos, unless research on the source of the images was called off.
Bezos, on February 7, 2019, called Pecker’s lighthouse and posted the full email, saying he refused to be blackmailed.
Sanchez vehemently insisted that he had not leaked the photos and told the Washington Post on February 29, 2019 that he had not passed the photos to AMI.
“Never in a million years would I be able to give Jeff [naked] pix to AMI because I never had them, ”he said.
‘If AMI has them, they came from others. Period. “
Sanchez has insisted he did not provide the ten nude and otherwise personal photos
Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos have aggressively investigated The National Enquirer
Sanchez did not deny that he had delivered the couples’ text messages to the magazine, however, and told The Post that he refused to “dignify himself” with a “baseless smear” response provided by the texts.
Sanchez said federal investigators found he had no case to respond to the leaked images.
“Once the FBI and Amazon investigators themselves set me free to own the images used to blackmail Jeff, I thought I would apologize privately, at the very least,” he said.
But Jeff and Lauren haven’t looked back.
I was thrown under the bus. Unfortunately, it is likely that the next time I see them I will be in court.
Lauren and Michael Sanchez, raised in New Mexico, used to be allies and close friends
AMI issued a public statement in March 2019 in which it said it was Sanchez who leaned them into the matter and “provided all the material” for the investigation.
Sanchez admitted in his lawsuit that he “helped” the story in an effort to control the narrative about his sister’s relationship.
In March 2020, Sánchez filed another lawsuit, this one against AMI, also accusing them of defaming him.
Sanchez argued that it was the Saudi Arabs who hacked Bezos’ phone and leaked the photos, in retaliation for the Washington Post’s aggressive report on the assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
AMI has dismissed the case as ridiculous.
“Sanchez’s presentation is his latest attempt to ignore the truth and rewrite history,” they said in a statement.
“The fact, as we have argued throughout, is that Mr. Sanchez sold the story to his National Inquirer about his sister’s secret affair and was the only source for his notification.
“His frivolous demand underscores what his true motivation is, his own greed.”