By Harriet Ryan and Amy Kaufman, Los Angeles Times -
May 19, 2012, 12:51 p.m.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-john-travolta-20120520,0,2532915.story
Tawdry allegations
about John Travolta became a sensation after they appeared in a lawsuit. But the
accusers soon withdrew the suit, leaving questions about their attorney and how
the matter got so much publicity.
The actor's attorney says the allegations
are baseless.
It was billed as a "shocking tell-all" and a
"world exclusive," but the National Enquirer's March 26 cover story landed with
a thud. TMZ, Page Six and other major players in celebrity gossip ignored the
article in which a masseuse claimed John Travolta offered money for
sex.
Five weeks after the issue left the checkout
aisle, a DUI attorney from Pasadena put the anonymous masseuse's tawdry tale in
a lawsuit and it became an overnight pop culture sensation, topping Google News,
trending on Twitter and meriting a segment on "Good Morning America." Another
anonymous accuser joined the suit, and Travolta found himself in an embarrassing
spot just as he was preparing to promote a new Oliver Stone
movie.
The case imploded this week with the
accusers voluntarily dismissing the suit. What remained were questions about how
a small-time attorney with financial problems and a desire to boost his legal
profile got the case in the first place and why a sloppy and inaccurate court
filing was able generate so much unwanted attention on an A-list
star.
Travolta's attorney, who has repeatedly
called the allegations baseless, said he suspected the National Enquirer played
some role in connecting the Texas masseuse with Okorie Chukwudimm Okorocha, the
Pasadena lawyer.
"I don't know how you would pick Okorie
Okorocha out of a phone book," said Martin Singer, the Hollywood power player
whose clientele includes Arnold Schwarzenegger, Charlie Sheen and Sylvester
Stallone. He said he had assigned a private investigator to look into
Okorocha.
A spokeswoman for the Enquirer's parent company,
American Media Inc., did not respond to questions about the tabloid's
involvement. Okorocha initially said in a telephone interview that he did not
recall how he got the case. Moments later he said the Enquirer story was brought
to his attention by a stranger at a farmer's market and that by coincidence the
masseuse contacted him via email two days later.
"That's a little surreal, right?" he said. Pressed
about a connection to the Enquirer, Okorocha said he and an editor from Radar
Online, an American Media gossip site that posted a dozen exclusive stories
about the scandal, attended the same church and he considered her a "family
friend," but insisted she had not played any part in the masseuse retaining
him.
The editor, Jen Heger, disputed his account
of a relationship in an email, saying she was "not aware of ever meeting Okorie
Okorocha," had never attended church with him and had not heard his name before
the Okorocha suit. A lawyer for AMI subsequently sent Okorocha a letter
demanding that he "refrain from making any further statement or suggestion that
you have a personal friendship with Ms. Heger or any other person at
Radar."
Hours later, Okorocha sent an email to The
Times, copied to the AMI attorney, disavowing his previous claims: "I do NOT
know anyone associated or employed there. I have no personal relationship with
anyone there at all. I apologize for the harm I caused."
Okorocha approached Travolta's
representatives last month in an effort to settle the masseuse's grievance
privately. An attorney since 2003, the 36-year-old Okorocha had one previous
brush with celebrity when he was accused of trying to broker the sale of a sex
tape featuring Verne Troyer, the actor who played Mini Me in the "Austin Powers"
films. Okorocha's normal caseload was sexual harassment and wrongful termination
claims and DUI defenses, work that didn't make for big headlines or
paychecks.
Okorocha often worked for free as a DUI
expert for other lawyers in hopes they would throw him some business, he wrote
in a court filing in March in an ongoing child custody dispute with his ex-wife.
In recent years, he slid into debt. He filed for bankruptcy last summer,
declaring an annual income of about $70,000 and debts of $1.2
million.
Okorocha said that when he approached
Travolta's camp, he didn't demand a specific amount of money: "I never threw a
number out there. I didn't even say 50 cents."
It's not unusual in Hollywood for
celebrities to avoid bad press by paying off individuals making salacious
claims, even if they dispute the allegations. Okorocha said he expected that was
what would transpire with his client, but "there was some
miscommunication."
"I gave [a Travolta attorney] a deadline and
I said, 'We need to have something by a certain day. We're not going to wait
around forever.' I think somebody was on vacation or dropped the ball," he
said.
Singer confirmed the negotiations occurred
and that Okorocha provided a draft copy of a suit, but said he wasn't involved
until late in the process because Okorocha initially contacted another law firm
that handles Travolta's business matters.
On May 4, Okorocha filed suit in U.S.
District Court in Los Angeles. The nine-page assault and battery complaint
demanded $2 million on behalf of a plaintiff identified only as John Doe and
gave his sordid allegations a legitimacy the Enquirer did not. Since the
allegations were in court filings, news outlets could report on them without
fear of libel claims.
Copies of the lawsuit were widely available
online and readers discovered a filing that appeared hastily written – one
paragraph that referred to "assault and battery by a peace officer" seemed to
have been cut and pasted from another document – but struck many as titillating
and funny. There were graphic descriptions of Travolta's genitals as well as
irrelevant details of an alleged January encounter at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
It described a personal chef preparing hamburgers for the star and "2 or 3
wrappers from chocolate cake packages" on the floor of his
SUV.
In less than 24 hours, Okorocha became a
sought-after interview, his headshot running alongside Travolta's in stories
about the suit. It was welcome attention for Okorocha. He had been eager to
"build a name" as a lawyer, he wrote two months before in a declaration in his
custody case.
"I…am doing all I can to try and gain
recognition so that I can one day have a thriving practice choosing what cases
to take," he wrote.
Travolta's lawyers identified problems with
the masseuse's suit almost immediately. The actor's legal team provided photos,
flight records and receipts showing Travolta had been in New York on the date in
question. Okorocha said his client made a mistake about the timing, but stood by
the allegations. He told a camera crew in a video posted on TMZ that he was
being inundated with calls by other potential victims and said he was in the
process of vetting hundreds of similar claims.
But even as he was making these statements
publicly, Okorocha was in search of additional accusers, according to a Los
Angeles author he contacted.
Robert Randolph, who published a book this
year containing allegations against Travolta, said Okorocha emailed him
repeatedly looking for people with potential claims against Travolta. In a May
11 email Randolph provided to the Times, Okorocha wrote, "Is there a Travolta
related matter you think I may want to look at?" After Randolph wrote that some
men were fearful of coming forward, Okorocha responded: "I will keep them all
confidential. They dont ever need to be disclosed." Randolph said he was worried
by Okorocha's media appearance and ceased contact.
This week both clients fired Okorocha,
withdrew their cases and hired Gloria Allred. The media-savvy veteran said the
men were still weighing whether to proceed with legal
action.
Travolta has not talked publicly about the
scandal, though he will likely be asked about it at press junkets this summer.
In July, the 58-year-old actor will star as a federal agent in Stone's crime
thriller "Savages." Singer said he didn't want to talk about the case's effect
on Travolta's career, but said that from a legal standpoint, his client had
achieved a complete victory: "You couldn't ask for anything better when two
people drop their lawsuits."
For his part, Okorocha said he doesn't
regret taking the case, though it has come with costs. On Thursday, he filed
suit against a disgruntled former client who bought the domain name
okorieokorocha.com and has set up a site disparaging Okorocha's legal
abilities.
Surreal, fucking National Enquirer? REALLY SURREAL??? Surreal is the
existence of such trash magazines like this and people like this loser greedy
'lawyer'...and it's surreal that there is a majority of Americans who blindly
believe in this shit.
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