Stormy Daniels Ordered to Pay Trump Another $122K

After failed defamation lawsuit, Daniels ordered to pay more of his legal fees
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Apr 5, 2023 12:30 AM CDT
Stormy Daniels Ordered to Pay Trump Another $122K
FILE - Adult film actress Stormy Daniels arrives for the opening of the adult entertainment fair Venus in Berlin, Oct. 11, 2018.   (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)

Stormy Daniels must pay nearly $122,000 of former President Trump's legal fees that were racked up in connection with the porn actor's failed defamation lawsuit, an appeals court ruled Tuesday. The decision in California came at about the same time that Trump became the only ex-president to be charged with a crime, the AP reports. Trump pleaded not guilty in a New York City courtroom to a 34-count felony indictment accusing him of falsifying business records in a scheme to hush up allegations of extramarital affairs with Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal that broke during his first White House run. Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, alleges she had an affair with Trump in 2006 and was paid $130,000 as part of a nondisclosure agreement days before the 2016 presidential election.

She sued him for defamation after he dismissed her claims of being threatened to keep quiet about the tryst as a “total con job.” A judge threw out the case in 2018. On Tuesday, a commissioner for the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Trump's attorneys “reasonably spent” more than 183 hours on an appeal of the case but denied a request for another $5,150 in other fees because it wasn't itemized. In all, Daniels has been ordered to pay more than $600,000 in Trump’s legal fees, tweeted Harmeet Dillon, one of his attorneys in the case. That includes some $300,000 in attorney's fees that Daniels previously was ordered to pay. After a federal appeals court upheld that award last year, Daniels stated: “I will go to jail before I pay a penny.”

(More Stormy Daniels stories.)

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