LOS ANGELES (AP) – Stormy Daniels must pay nearly $122,000 in legal fees Donald Trump racked up in connection with the porn actor’s failed defamation lawsuit, an appeals court ruled Tuesday.
The decision in California came at the same time that Trump became the only former president to be charged with a crime. Trump pleaded not guilty in a New York City courtroom to a 34-count felony charge accusing him of falsifying business records in a plan to hush up allegations of extramarital affairs with Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal that broke during the first opening of the White House.
He sued her for defamation after she dismissed claims she was threatened to keep quiet about the tryst as a “total job”. The judge threw out the case in 2018.
On Tuesday, the commissioners of the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Trump’s lawyers had “reasonably spent” more than 183 hours on the appeal of the case, but rejected a request for another $5,150 in other costs because there were no items.
In all, Daniels has been ordered to pay more than $600,000 in Trump’s legal fees, tweeted Harmeet Dillon, one of the lawyers in the case.
After a federal appeals court upheld the award last year, Daniels said, “I’ll go to jail before I pay the money.”
A message seeking comment from her attorney, Oklahoma attorney Clark Brewster, was not immediately returned after hours Tuesday.