It's a conspiracy - Liza
2004-11-17 09:31
Los Angeles - Liza Minnelli has launched a legal counterattack on a former assistant who accused her of assault and forcing him into sex, claiming he is conspiring with her estranged husband to destroy her.
The Oscar-winner sued M'Hammed Soumayah in New York, accusing him of breaching a confidentiality pact he signed in return for his $238 000-a-year job and demanding at least $250 000 in damages.
Soumayah sued Minnelli for $100m on November 9, alleging that the diminutive 58-year-old repeatedly beat him, forced him to have sex with her and then wrongfully fired him from his lucrative job in June 2004.
But in a countersuit filed on the same day and obtained by Celebrity Justice television, Minnelli dismissed the former major domo's lawsuit as being part of an orchestrated campaign to attack her reputation.
Minnelli's husband, David Gest, last year filed a separate suit against her, claiming he was badly injured in alleged beatings by his wife who he claimed developed almost super-human strength during vodka-fuelled rages.
'Engaged in collusion'
The daughter of Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli claimed in her suit that Soumayah had threatened "to do whatever he could to destroy her, including ... helping David Gest" unless he was reinstated.
Soumayah's threat allegedly came after Minnelli in June informed him through her lawyers that she intended to renegotiate his contract as she had dramatically cut back on the work he performed starting in December 2003.
Both Minnelli and Soumayah agree that he remained on full salary between December last year and June 2004, but Soumayah claims he was wrongfully sacked without being given a reason after being marginalised by Minnelli.
Minnelli claimed in her suit that Gest and Soumayah had held at least one meeting in New York and that Gest had quoted parts of Soumayah's lawsuit against her in a press release, indicting the two were working in league.
"The audacious act of issuing a press release, at a minimum, supports that Mr Gest and Mr Soumaya have engaged in collusion," Minnelli's action said.
"Whether actively involved, or as an unwitting dupe, Soumayah is now engaged with Gest's press crusade," the suit added.
- SAPA