Amazon boss Jeff Bezos reportedly wants a judge to toss a lawsuit accusing him of defaming his girlfriend’s brother over the leak of his nude photos.
The billionaire businessman fired back at Michael Sanchez in a court filing asking for the lawsuit to be dismissed, saying Sanchez is making meritless claims just to milk Bezos for more money, according to reports.
“Extortion rears its head again,” reads Bezos’ Monday filing in a Los Angeles court, according to Mother Jones. “The complaint fabricates defamatory statements to manufacture a basis for a lawsuit.”
Sanchez’s Friday lawsuit said Bezos falsely accused him of handing sexually explicit images of the Amazon CEO to the National Enquirer, which eventually published a story revealing Bezos’ relationship with Sanchez’s sister, Lauren Sanchez.
Sanchez suffered “humiliation and harassment” as a result of Bezos’ allegations, which led the FBI to raid his house in view of his neighbors, according to his complaint.
But Bezos called Sanchez’s claims baseless and argued that they marked an attempt to suppress his free-speech rights, according to Bloomberg News. The exec reportedly cited a California law that allows such lawsuits to be quickly dismissed.
Michael SanchezJohn Sciulli“Mr. Sanchez is now bringing this action to gain money from Mr. Bezos, the very person whose information he sold to the National Enquirer,” Bezos reportedly argued in his filing. “Mr. Sanchez claims he is doing so because he is now unhappy about news coverage concerning the media maelstrom that he helped cause after receiving the $200,000 and betraying his sister.”
Michael Sanchez admitted in his complaint to working with the Enquirer as the outlet reported on his sister’s affair with Bezos, but said he was just trying to “get ahead of the story.”
In a blog post last year, Bezos accused the Enquirer of trying to extort him, alleging that the tabloid offered to keep his nudes under wraps if he said publicly that he had no reason to believe its parent company American Media Inc.’s coverage of him was politically motivated.
The saga of the leaked photos took a strange turn last month with the publication of a forensic audit that said Saudi Arabia may have been responsible.
The nation called claims that it hacked Bezos’ phone “absurd.”
