Oprah Sued For $180 Million

Paul @ Gone Hollywood | Thursday, October 23, 2008

Oprah sure does get a lot of lawsuits thrown at her doesn’t she? Today is no exception, it seems an ex employee of the talk show queen is suing her for a whopping $180 million.

The Associated Press reports that Keifer Bonvillain, a man from Louisiana is suing Oprah because she and her attorney allegedly made false statements that lead the FBI to arrest him on extortion charges.

In 2006, Keifer Bonvillain recorded telephone converstions with an employee of Harpo, Winfrey’s production company, and threatened to publish a book based on the recordings. Police nabbed Bonvillain after another Harpo employee agreed to pay him $1.5 million and wired $3,000 as a down payment.

Bonvillain told the FBI that he had publishing offers for the supposed tell-all that ranged from $500,000 to $3 million and insisted in the lawsuit that he had deliberately avoided doing anything against the law. Despite what seemed to be a solid case against him, the Feds agreed to drop the charges on the condition that Bonvillain undergo drug testing, perform 50 hours of community service and pay back the $3,000 in restitution.

In the lawsuit, which he is also suing the FBI, he says “there was substantial damage done to my name and reputation on a world level, the extent of my damages is vast.”

Chip Babcock, attorney for Harpo Productions, denies the allegations and says he welcomes the challenge to prove Bonvillain wrong. “And we know that this whole episode started when the plaintiff wiretapped a Harpo employee in California,” he said. “We advised [Bonvillain] that we believe that wiretapping was illegal, and this case will give us an opportunity to determine whether we were right about that.”

I really doubt anything will come from this lawsuit, she will hire a team and make this disappear within a matter of weeks.

[ny daily news]