Jury Finds Writer Defrauded Movie Company

NEW YORK (AP) – A writer who created the alter ego of a male prostitute to pen an autobiographical novel defrauded a production company that purchased the movie rights to the story, a Manhattan jury decided Friday.The federal jury, after a short deliberation, awarded $116,500 to Antidote International Films Inc. in its lawsuit against San Francisco writer Laura Albert, who went to strange lengths to hide her identity behind a nonexistent male prostitute named JT LeRoy.LeRoy was identified as the author of “Sarah,” the tale of a truck stop hooker that was marketed as being based on his life. The jury ordered the $110,000 paid to Antidote, along with $6,500 in punitive damages.Federal District Court Judge Jed Rakoff said he would determine later whether attorneys’ fees would be awarded.To extend the ruse, Ms. Albert’s friends donned wigs and posed as the fictitious LeRoy at book signings. They duped journalists with the phony back story about truck stop sex. And Ms. Albert, posing as the troubled teen, even made phone calls to a psychiatrist.Although Ms. Albert stared straight ahead when the verdict was read, and said she expected the decision, she was quick to condemn it.“This goes beyond me,” Ms. Albert said. “Say an artist wants to use a pseudonym for political reasons, for performance art. This is a new, dangerous brave new world we are in.”She said that Antidote had succeeded in exposing more of her life story during trial, and will try to make more money off of it.“They made my life public domain. It’s about commerce,” she said. “They’re going to try to hijack my copyrights, which is like stealing my child.”Antidote and its president, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, said they spent $110,000 working on a film based on the book. The company, which still holds a one-year option on the book, has no plans to use the rights now, but “they might be valuable to somebody else, who knows,” said Antidote’s attorney, Gregory Curtner.“I think we would have preferred that we never had to get here,” Mr. Curtner said after the verdict. “We have sympathy for Laura Albert.”Ms. Albert, in bizarre testimony punctuated by tears and laughter, testified that she had been assuming male identities for decades as a coping mechanism for psychological problems brought on by her sexual abuse as a child.To her, she said, LeRoy was real.But Mr. Curtner said Ms. Albert stepped over a line by signing contracts and obtaining copyrights under the phony name.Ms. Albert’s attorney, Eric Weinstein, said his client was disappointed by the verdict.“We had a very smart judge and a very smart jury, and we can’t change the outcome,” he said.

Jury Finds Writer Defrauded Movie Company

More from the New York Sun

Fani Willis Comes Under Fire as Georgia’s GOP Lawmakers Plan Sweeping Restrictions Following Her Failed Prosecution of Trump

Trump To ‘Cut Off All Trade’ With Spain After It Rejects Use of Its Military Bases for Iran Attacks

Trump Denies Party Fracture Over Iran Strikes, Says Tucker Carlson’s Criticism Has ‘No Impact on Me’

Canadian Visits To America Dropped 21 Percent Amid Trump’s Tariffs and Suggestion Canada Should Become the 51st State

Israel Says It Destroyed Complex Full of Clerics Tasked With Selecting Iran’s Next Supreme Leader

Iran-Israeli-American War Provides Hot Topic for Trump and Xi To Discuss at Summit in Beijing

Supreme Court Temporarily Blocks California Rules Preventing Schools From Telling Parents About Their Children’s Gender Transitions

Trump’s War in Iran Is Just