Donald Trump’s ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ Tapes Are Being Reviewed in a Fraud Suit
Donald Trump’s ‘Celebrity Apprentice’ Tapes Are Being Reviewed in a Fraud Suit
(Bloomberg) -- Unaired footage from Donald Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” TV show is being reviewed by a team of lawyers in Los Angeles as part of a suit accusing the former president and his children of ripping off viewers for years by endorsing a troubled multilevel marketing company.
Lawyers for people who say they were fraudulently induced by Trump to invest in the marketing company, ACN Opportunity LLC, have been waiting for almost two years to access the tapes held by Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, as part of a federal suit they filed against the Trumps in 2018.
They lawyers “are working diligently to make efficient progress” in reviewing two episodes of the reality-TV program, plaintiffs attorney Roberta Kaplan said in a letter Thursday to the New York judge overseeing the case. They’re looking for evidence including unscripted, behind-the-scenes chatter among the Trumps, who allegedly didn’t really believe in the products they pitched.
Kaplan wrote to advise the judge that ACN this week asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take its appeal challenging a federal appeals court ruling denying ACN’s attempt to force the Trump case into arbitration, even though ACN isn’t a party in the litigation. In the letter, Kaplan called it an “extraordinary” delay.
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