The reality TV star is one of the most popular targets of “pro se”
lawsuits, the often unhinged legal actions filed without the help of an
attorney. Looking for someone to blame for their troubles — or perhaps
just looking for attention — plaintiffs like to accuse the rich and
famous.
For celebrities, it comes with the territory, said lawyer
Martin Garbus, whose high-profile clients have included Lenny Bruce,
author Terry McMillan, Michael Moore, Robert Redford and Nelson Mandela.
“I think nobody likes it. I think after a while, you learn to deal with it,” he said.
Most pro se cases filed in court against celebrities are tossed before the defendant is even aware they’re filed, Garbus said.
“It’s very easy, it’s very gratifying” for some folks to sue the famous, he said.
Here’s a look at some of the alleged wrongdoings of celebrities, based on the cases filed against them.
Kim’s Kongress:
Before she fell for Kanye,
the bootylicious Kim Kardashian had a steamy affair with Florida
Senator Marco Rubio in the state capital in Tallahassee — and this
plaintiff claims to have the sex tape to prove it!
“I am in
possession of this sex tape that Marco Rubio & Kim Kardashian has
made and the defendants collectively have been threatening my life with
murder, death threats, and bodily harm unless I return the tape to
them,” says Jonathan Kimberly, a Florida man who lists the Boca Raton
headquarters of the National Enquirer as his address.
He sought, but didn’t get, a restraining order.
In
a separate suit filed in Kentucky (where Kimberly uses the headquarters
of media company Gannett as his address), he claims Kim, Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian “sped
up to me in a A-team van, jumped out with burglar masks and crow bars
and began bashing my head … and Kim Kardashian jammed the water hose in
my mouth, Khloe pushed a squeegee in my face, I was lathered down with
hot soapy water by the defendants which offended me.”
He didn’t get a restraining order in that case, either.
More Kim Shenanigans:
A Brooklyn man also claimed
to have the dirt on Kardashian — including steamy encounters with
quarterback Tim Tebow and Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann.
Gino
Romano alleged this in separate 2012 lawsuits that also claimed the
Kardashians ran an “Armenian terrorist training camp in Central
Illinois.”
Kim and Bachmann apparently got it on at “a Cedar Rapids Wendys,” Romano says in an Iowa lawsuit seeking a restraining order.
“I
saw Bachmann & Kim Kardashian drinking a Frosty together with 1
straw both wearing 101 Dalmations T-shirts,” the filing reads.
“After
I saw Kim Kardashian & Bachmann French kissing, I yelled out to
Bachmann, ‘You lied, You lied to American,’ and Bachmann took her shoes
off and threw them at my head.
“Kim Kardashian threw her used underwear at me — I got a STD from it.”
Romano claims in a Florida filing that he got his hands on a sex tape Kim made “with Tim Tebow dressed as a devil.”
I’m Blue Ivy’s Mum:
A Bronx woman who went to court against Kardashian, Beyonce and Mariah Carey, implying she’s really the mother of the superstars’ offspring, says she’s really just misunderstood.
Tina Seals, 43, told The Post she never meant to imply she was the real mother of Beyonce’s baby Blue Ivy,
or songstress Carey’s twins, or Kardashian’s daughter, when she filed
lawsuits this summer in Manhattan Federal court against the stars
claiming to be “associated with” them, and asking to “verify maternity.”
“I didn’t know it was going to be such a firestorm,” she told The Post when asked about her claims, before launching into an explanation — sort of — of how she believes her DNA is being “trafficked.”
Instead
of getting knocked up the old fashioned way, celebrities, Seals says,
often use “services” to get pregnant. The mother of three grown
children, who believes a baby was recently stolen out of her own body,
says the stars need to know their babies could have come from illicit
genetic material.
So naturally, she asked Carey in court papers
for “five vocal sessions with Moriah’s [sic] vocal coach 5 cd’s produced
mixed mastered distributed by Moriah’s label with her featured on one
and all five endorsed by her.”
When it comes to Blue Ivy, daughter of Beyonce and Jay-Z, Seals is much more direct.
“I
was associated with defendants in a quasi arrangement during the time
at Blue Ivy’s birth and would like to verify maternity.”
She also
wants “mandated mediation pending test results” because, “I desire to
preserve this relationship as these are great people!”
Gwyneth and Sterling:
“I ain’t the real Chris Martin da singer, But [sic] Donald Sterling of
the Clippers think [sic] I am,” a man named Chris Martin wrote in a
July lawsuit filed in Florida, in which he seeks $10 million and an
emergency restraining order against Sterling and — who else? — actress Gwyneth Paltrow.
The
pair, Martin explains matter-of-factly, are lovers, for which Paltrow
gets paid $500,000 a month so the two can “breed” tall, blonde,
blue-eyed offspring “under Sterlings Nazi Aryan Beliefs.”
Sterling
threatened him in an apparent case of mistaken identity, according to
Martin: “My phone rings, and at the same time a rock throws through my
window and tires screeched away. I pick up the phone and it’s Donald
Sterling.
“I catfish yo chick Gywyneth [sic],” Sterling allegedly taunted. “Back off ... Cold Play sucks.”
Martin,
not the singer, insists, ““I’m just a innocent victim — wrong Chris
Martin. I’m also gay and I smoke medical marijuana and I got PTSD from
the illegal war in Iraq, so I don’t need this crap and feel like a mouse
trapped ... I don’t want no more Sterling calls.
“I’m in danger. I’m an emotional wreck. I seek $10 million dollars.”
Martin, who put down the Manhattan headquarters of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer as his address, got nada.
It’s a Thriller:
When your dad is the Godfather of Soul, you’re bound to pen some hit music, right?
Colorado man Vincent E. Loggins — who claims he was fathered by James Brown in
Kingston, Jamaica — accused music legends Diana Ross, Smoky Robinson
[sic] and famed Motown producer Berry Gordie in 2010 of taking music
from him, and asked for Quincy Jones and rapper Ice Tea to serve as
character witnesses.
But what he really wanted, Loggins said, was royalties from Michael Jackson’s Thriller, the lyrics of which he claims he “scribbled on pulp wrote with indian ink ... while residing in the state of Oklahoma.”
$800 Billion Please:
She’s leaving nothing to chance.
A San Jose, Calif., woman named Suki Lee had a beef with a wide variety of folks, including Justin Bieber,
actress Keke Palmer, TLC rapper T-Boz, and each of their “entire”
families, as well as the CEO of Twitter, because the social media
platform “has allowed Keke Palmer to impersonate [her].”
That is, when the artists aren’t “stealing [her] music off the internet and saleing [sic] it for millions of dollars.”
For her troubles, Lee asked a judge to award her $800 billion in damages — which was denied when her case was tossed.
Footloose in a Federal Pen:
A Pennsylvania crook with a penchant for filing wacky federal lawsuits outdid himself in 2010 when he sued the cast of Dancing with the Stars — which at the time included actress Shannen Doherty, Erin Andrews, NFLer Chad Ochocinco and astronaut Buzz Aldrin — for “promoting adultery.”
Jonathan
Lee Riches, a federal prison inmate who by some estimates has filed
5,000 frivolous lawsuits nationwide, claimed the TV show was
“discriminating against ... Muslim faith by promoting adultery and
dancing is forbidden in Islam and we are being forced to watch the
defendants enjoy themselves on television while billions of people in
the world cannot afford a TV set.”
Riches insisted he wasn’t
alone: he listed Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Underwear Bomber, as his
co-plaintiff. He filed from a Kentucky prison, where Riches was serving
time for wire fraud.
“Defendants don’t care about global hunger
and defendants dirty dancing acts offends us, and promotes sexual
activity for minors watching the show,” the suit charged.
Riches
demanded a restraining order, but a judge, citing Riches history of
litigation — which includes posing as Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff and
suing himself — shot down the suit.
99 Problems, and He’s One:
So where does Jay-Z get his inspiration? A Florida man has the answer.
“I
ghost write for Mr. Carter all the way to 2014,” writes Jeffney
Philistin in an October lawsuit against Jay-Z, whose given name is Shawn
Carter, and the rapper’s superstar wife, Beyonce.
Philistin, 27,
who is serving a 30-year prison sentence for robbery in Florida, says he
began corresponding with Jay-Z back in 2010, through a fellow inmate
named “Chuck,” who encouraged Philistin to send Jay-Z lyrics through the
mail so “he can up grade in this new era.”
Months later, Philistin claims, he heard Jay-Z using his words on a single from the disc Watch the Throne.
“Mr.
Carter has stolen the plaintiff lyrics, style, physical image through
his lyrics. Also the plaintiff have given [sic] the defendant Mr. Carter
ideas on how to write lyrics, how to zone rap, and other ideas how to
write in universal god language.”
Philistin, who has been in jail
since 2006, says Jay-Z even wrote him a letter, admitting that it was
Philistin who “gave [him] the most help in this music industry, but I
refuse to pay you. I know you are thinking I am a millionaire but that’s
just how it is I have con [sic] you.”
Because he hasn’t gotten his promised payment, the prison inmate is demanding $90 million in damages.
Unforgiven:
A Michigan woman seeking a cool $343
million in damages says her screenplays have been repeatedly pilfered by
none other than Dirty Harry.
In a lengthy tale of corruption,
theft and family despair, Jill Crittenden alleges Clint Eastwood stole a
screenplay she wrote, after it was lifted by co-workers who burgled her
home.
Jill Crittenden sought a 2012 search warrant for all of the
“banks and properties” of the actor-director, along with 24 other
defendants ranging from her ex-colleagues to Disney.
But it wasn’t the first time she and Eastwood crossed paths, Crittenden said. “I had thrown a screenplay called Divine Love over
the fence of Clint Eastwoods and had tried to met [sic] him but learned
later he was a subsidiary of Time Warner ... I was too poor to fight
Clint Eastwood and his cleverness.”
A judge did not make her day — shooting the suit down in court.
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