Stormy Daniels will pay Trump $122,000 in legal fees

Stormy Daniels must pay nearly $122,000 in legal fees incurred by Donald Trump in a failed defamation case against the porn star, an appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The decision in California came at a time when Trump became the only former president to be charged with a crime. Trump has pleaded not guilty in a New York court to a 34-count indictment accusing him of falsifying business documents as part of a scheme to cover up Daniels' alleged affair with Playboy model Karen McDougal that began during his first term. run for the White House. .

Daniels, real name Stephanie Clifford, says she had an affair with Trump in 2006 and paid him $130,000 under a non-disclosure agreement days before the 2016 presidential election. He sued her for defamation after she dismissed her claims that she had been threatened to keep quiet about the date as a 'total scam'. A judge dismissed the case in 2018.

On Tuesday, a panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals of the United States ruled that Trump's lawyers had spent more than 183 hours "reasonably" in the appeal of the case, but denied the request for an additional $ 5,150 in additional costs because it not so. enough. In total, Daniels was ordered to pay more than $600,000 in legal fees from Trump, tweeted Harmeet Dillon, one of his lawyers in the case.

This includes up to $300,000 in attorney's fees that Daniels has been ordered to pay. When a federal appeals court upheld the decision last year, Daniels said, "I'll go to jail before I pay a dime."

A message seeking comment from his attorney, Oklahoma attorney Clark Brewster, was not immediately returned after hours on Tuesday.