Arguably the most famous person in the world, it seems like virtually everything related to Donald Trump gets a lot of attention. After all, people talk about Donald’s movie cameos, when famous people endorse him, his famous reality show, and his behavior when he hosted The Apprentice. Of course, Donald also gets a lot of attention when he makes comments that shock people and when he files lawsuits.
During Donald’s long history of lawsuits, he has been involved in many memorable court battles, including when he sued Bill Maher. However, there are a lot of people who don’t realize that Donald once won a $5 million lawsuit against a beauty queen.
Donald Trump Sued A Beauty Queen For Defamation And Won A $5 Million Judgment
Throughout the history of beauty pageants, Miss Universe and Miss USA have often considered to be the biggest deals of all. Before he became the President of the United States, Donald Trump took over those pageants when he bought Miss Universe and Miss USA in 1996.
Donald Trump’s ownership of Miss Universe and Miss USA would later go on to result in some controversies for him. One of those scandals came about after a competitor in the beauty pageant made some accusations about their credibility.
Those accusations clearly angered Donald at first. However, Donald likely felt a lot better about the situation after he later sued and won a $5 million judgment against the beauty queen who made the accusation.
In December 2012, Today published an article that revealed how the legal drama was playing out at that time.
Donald Trump’s Top Five Companies In 2019, According to Investopedia | |
|---|---|
Company | Rank |
Mar-a-Lago Club LLC | #5 |
Trump Turnberry | #4 |
Trump Ruffin Tower LLC | #3 |
Trump Old Post Office LLC | #2 |
Trump National Doral | #1 |
Citing a report from The New York Post which is no longer up, Today revealed what led to Donald winning the $5 million judgment.
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In 2012, a beauty queen named Sheena Monnin was named Miss Pennsylvania and then went on to compete at Miss USA. After competing at Miss USA, Sheena publicly claimed that the beauty pageant was rigged.
After Sheena Monnin accused Miss USA of being rigged, Donald Trump appeared on
Good Morning America
to deny her claims. As a June 2012
ABC News
article revealed, Donald claimed that Sheena, “made a very false charge, and she knows it was a false charge.”
A 2012 article from EOnline detailed what Sheena’s accusations about the Miss USA pageant were.
According to Sheena, she was backstage at the Miss USA pageant when she spoke to Miss Florida, Karina Brez. Sheena claims that Karina told her she saw a paper with the top five competitors listed on it before the judging was supposed to have started.
In June 2012,
EOnline
published a separate article after speaking to Miss Florida Karina Brez. While talking to the outlet, Karina claimed that Sheena Monnin’s accusation that Miss USA was rigged was false. “Looking back, it’s definitely a rehearsal list, because from the names that I read off that sheet, it wasn’t even the top five… It was nowhere close to what Pennsylvania is saying, so her claims are incorrect.”
Sheena went on to claim that when the top five were announced, they were the competitors that Karina told her about. Not only that, Sheena claimed that the top five were announced in the same order that they were listed on the paper according to what Karina told her.
When the names were called out in the order that she said she saw them on the list, that’s just too coincidental to not be true.
Sheena making that accusation publicly would cost her a lot.
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In response to Sheena’s claim, Donald Trump’s lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, appeared on TMZ Live to address the situation.
After buying the Miss Universe and Miss USA Pageants in 1996, Donald Trump would own them for many years. While Donald sold half of the pageants to NBC Universal at one point, Donald regained full ownership and went on to sell the pageants to WME/IMG in 2015, according to a
Forbes
article.
Michael claimed that if Sheena retracted her claims and publicly apologized in 24 hours, that would end things. However, Michael stated if Sheena refused, a lawsuit would be filed against her. Since Sheena refused to apologize, and she’d signed a contract before competing in Miss USA, the matter went to arbitration.
As a part of Today‘s aforementioned 2012 article, the outlet detailed what happened after the lawsuit was filed and went to arbitration.
According to a July 2015 article from
The Daily Beast
, Michael Cohen spoke to the outlet about what he’d done to Sheena Monnin. Michael, who was still very loyal to Donald Trump at the time, bragged that the lawsuit was going to “destroy” Sheena’s life, according to
The Daily Beast
.
Unfortunately for Sheena, U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Theodore H. Katz ruled that the brunette beauty had defamed Donald Trump’s organization that owned the Miss USA pageant. Not only that, the judge ruled that Sheena’s claims were “false” and she “showed a reckless disregard” when she made them.
As a result of those findings, the judge instructed Sheena to pay Donald’s company $5 million. While that was very definitive, there was more to the story.
Why Donald Trump Never Got $5 Million From The Lawsuit Despite Winning The Judgment
Based on Today’s aforementioned article about Donald Trump’s lawsuit against Sheena Monnin, he ultimately won the legal battle. To Today’s credit, that was what was known about the situation when they published their article. However, further updates would cast the situation in a completely new light.
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In July 2015, The Daily Beast published an in-depth article about Donald’s lawsuit against the beauty queen. That article revealed that Donald won the lawsuit because Sheena didn’t offer any defense in the matter at all.
Since Sheena obviously wasn’t a lawyer, she hired an attorney to represent her during her legal battle against Donald. Unfortunately for Sheena, her lawyer gave her bad advice. To be specific, Sheena was told she didn’t need to attend the arbitration meeting and her lawyer didn’t go either.
With nobody there to represent Sheena, the judge was granted a default judgment for the $5 million Donald was seeking.
According to The Daily Beast’s article, Sheena petitioned the court to vacate the judgment after realizing she’d been misled. Fortunately for Sheena, The Daily Beast’s article stated that it had been reported that Sheena later reached a settlement with Donald to pay $1 million.
Sheena also filed her own lawsuit, according to The Daily Beast’s reporting. Sheena sued her lawyer for malpractice and reached another settlement that allowed her to pay Donald.
Donald Trump
- Birthname
- Donald John Trump
- Birthdate
- June 14, 1946
- Birthplace
- Queens, New York City, New York, USA
- Members
- Wife: Melania Trump; Children: Barron Trump, Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Tiffany Trump, Eric Trump
- Height
- 6′ 2
- @realDonaldTrump
- Siblings
- Maryanne Trump Barry, Elizabeth Trump Grau, Fred Trump, Jr., Robert Trump
- Profession
- Political Figure
- Net worth
- $2,600,000,000
- Source of Wealth
- Businessman
- Nationality
- American
