Former contestant of "The Apprentice" Summer Zervos who alleged US President-elect Donald Trump of sexual assault during the time of the presidential race, has filed a defamation lawsuit against him.
Zervos and her lawyer, Gloria Allred, announced the lawsuit at a news conference in Los Angeles just three days before Trump's inauguration as the US President. She made claims of Trump making unwanted sexual advances towards her back in 2007.
Forty-year-old Zervos said that Trump tried seducing her at the Beverly Hills Hotel, by kissing her on the mouth without consent and thrusting his genitals against her. Apparently, she was compelled to go public with the accusations after seeing recordings on the set of "Access Hollywood" in which Trump made crude comments about grabbing women by the genitals.
Trump denied Zervos' allegations in October and said he hardly recalled her from the reality show. He said in a statement, "To be clear, I never met her at a hotel or greeted her inappropriately a decade ago. That is not who I am as a person, and it is not how I've conducted my life."
It was during the presidential campaigns that Trump was faced with several allegations of sexual assault from 10 different women, all of which accused him of inappropriate sexual contact. He showed total denial against all allegation, calling it all to be a total fabrication and a lie to hurt his campaign. Despite his earlier threat of suing them all, Trump has not filed a lawsuit against any of the women.
Zervos' lawsuit cites that Trump used his state-wide and world-wide bully pulpit to intentionally and maliciously disparage Zervos and other women who accused Trump. It continues to say that Trump knew that his conscious disregard of these women by constantly calling them liars would cause threats of violence, economic harm and especially reputational damage in their lives.
Zervos asked Trump to retract his words after he won the election in November, but he declined to do so. She added that she would be willing to dismiss the lawsuit for no monetary compensation if the President-elect simply retracts the false and defamatory statements he made about her and acknowledges the truth of his behavior.
Shortly after her allegations, the Trump campaign released a lengthy statement from John Barry, whom the campaign identifies to be Zervos' first cousin. Barry wrote that he was shocked and bewildered by her press conference, implying that she had only previously spoken good things about Trump.
