Melania Trump Sues Daily Mail $150m Lawsuit Over Sex Worker Claims

Melania Trump Sues Daily Mail $150m Lawsuit Over Sex Worker Claims

According to her lawyer, Charles Harder, Melania Trump has filed a joint $150m lawsuit against British tabloid- Daily Mail as well as a US blogger- Webster Tarpley.

Trump claimed that Daily Mail had insinuated she was a sex worker in the 1990s with its article which chronicled her journey to New York City when she worked as a model on a visa in the U.S.

The story referenced “highly-charged, lesbian-themed nude photographs” and suggested that the modelling agency Melania worked for also functioned as an escort agency, court papers show.

Meanwhile, Tarpley got into hot water with Mrs Trump as a result of his August 19 article titled: “Naked photoshoots, and troubling questions about visas that won’t go away: The VERY racy past of Donald Trump’s Slovenian wife.”

He alleged that Melania Trump was “reportedly obsessed and feared that some of her clients from her escort days would come forward hence, she had suffered a “full-blown nervous breakdown”.

“Melania Trump filed suit today in the state circuit court for Montgomery County, Maryland, against Mail Media, Inc. which publishes the Daily Mail Online, and against Webster G. Tarpley who publishes a weblog in Montgomery County, Maryland,”  Charles Harder, said in a statement.

“These defendants made several statements about Mrs. Trump that are 100 percent false and tremendously damaging to her personal and professional reputation.”

“Defendants’ actions are so egregious, malicious and harmful to Mrs Trump that her damages are estimated at $150 million dollars,” he continued.

Court documents revealed the complaint read;

“The conduct of Daily Mail was despicable, abhorrent, intentional, malicious and oppressive, and thus justifies an award of punitive damages.”

Melania, the wife to the Republican Presidential candidate, 46, was born in Slovenia and moved to the US to work as a model in the 1990s. She married Mr Trump in 2005.

Webster Tarpley has since issued a retraction on his site while The Daily Mail published a retraction of the story on Thursday night according to this report.

Daily mail however insisted it had not suggested the sex work claims were true but said that, even if false, they could affect the US presidential campaign.