#Brother of Jeff Bezos’ gal pal refiles defamation suit against publishing execs

The talent agent brother of Jeff Bezos’ gal pal is trying to revive his defamation case against ex-National Enquirer execs David Pecker and Dylan Howard — even as he’s sued by Bezos.

Michael Sanchez on Jan. 14 refiled defamation claims against the two tabloid execs over a March 2019 press release claiming he was the sole source of raunchy text messages and nude selfies the National Enquirer obtained in its reporting on Bezos’s affair with his sister, Lauren Sanchez. The amended lawsuit also names the National Enquirer’s former parent company, American Media Inc., as a defendant.

Sanchez’s Los Angeles federal court complaint seeks to convince the judge to keep Pecker and Howard as defendants using information about a 2017 OK! Magazine Summer Kickoff Party.

In a Dec. 29 ruling dismissing the execs from the initial suit, Judge Dolly Gee said Sanchez hadn’t done enough to link Pecker and Howard to the March press release, stating that he was the sole source of materials used to support the story, including nude selfies.

To get the claims to stick, Sanchez’s new complaint recalls a May 2017 party at the W Hotel in Hollywood where Howard, then AMI’s editor-in-chief and chief content officer, claimed to have “taken over the machinery” at the publisher of gossip mags like OK! and In Touch.

“Mr. Howard loudly bragged … that he had ‘taken over the machinery’ at AMI and that ‘nothing happens – nothing gets published or released – without my approval’,” according to the suit.

The only person Howard reported to, the lawsuit claims, was Pecker, AMI’s CEO. “Even so, it was Mr. Sanchez’s understanding and experience that when it came to certain high-profile matters, such those at issue in the present action, Mr. Howard was also required to obtain Mr. Pecker’s consent and approval,” the lawsuit added.

The filing comes as Bezos on Tuesday slapped Sanchez with a claim for $1.7 million in legal fees tied to a defamation suit against the Amazon founder that was tossed in November. In that case, Sanchez once again took issue with alleged claims that he was the source of the photos.

If the judge tosses Pecker and Howard from the suit again, AMI will be left as the sole defendant.

Despite the sparsity of new details, Sanchez’s lawyer, Jonathan Jenkins, says it’s more than just a legal Hail Mary.

“We feel we have them dead to rights,” he said.

And while no dollar amount is mentioned in the suit, Jenkins said he is thinking of a “big number.”

“They ruined his life and they ruined his business and they estranged him from his family,” said Jenkins.

Pecker, who was CEO of AMI until last year when it was acquired and renamed A360, declined to comment as did the company. Howard also left last year and has since emerged as the CEO of a new company that is introducing Italian fashion and lifestyle title Grazia to the US market next month. He could not be reached for comment.

The new complaint also removes Sanchez’s claims of intentional infliction of emotional distress and no longer names the National Enquirer as a defendant since the alleged defamation occurred via the March press release, not the January story.

Sanchez’s amended suit otherwise reiterates his previous claims that he was first contacted by the Enquirer’s Andrea Simpson in July 2018 when she called him to ask, “What’s up with Lauren and the billionaire.”

And he continues to assert that the nudie pics came from representatives of Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia — one of the many powerful “enemies” Bezos made as owner of The Washington Post — “who illegally hacked Mr. Bezos’s cellular phone.”

“On information and belief, MbS and the Saudi Arabian government set out to infect Mr. Bezos’s Apple iPhone X with sophisticated malware that gave the Saudis virtually unrestricted access to its contents,” the lawsuit says.

While the defendants have not yet responded to the latest amended complaint, in early court proceedings it has sought to shoot down Sanchez’s claims.

While American Media, Pecker and Howard have not yet responded to the updated complaint, they previously shot down Sanchez’s claims as the stuff of great fiction.

“While long on fantastical conspiracy theories and obfuscation, Sanchez cannot dodge the conclusive record of his voluminous communications with AMI employees feeding
details and photographs documenting the Bezos-L. Sanchez affair – all of which
confirm, in indelible black ink, that the press release’s identification of Sanchez as
AMI’s sole source was undeniably true and therefore cannot be defamatory.”

The seemingly salacious story has had far-reaching implications, including forcing Bezos to go public with his divorce from his wife MacKenzie Bezos before the story went to print.

Bezos in February 2019 went public with allegations that the Enquirer was trying to blackmail him with the nude selfies it had held back in publishing the month before. In making the claim, the billionaire revealed that his own private investigators were concerned that his phone had been hacked by spyware planted by the Saudis.

Bezos, who owns The Washington Post, suggested at the time that the story was politically motivated. This was just a few months after AMI admitted to having helped to arrange a hush-money payment to a woman who claimed to have had an affair with then-President Trump. The feds said the payment, made during the 2016 presidential campaign, constituted an illegal campaign contribution.

AMI has denied Bezos’ claims.