Publications
Partners
New York — A lawsuit accused a Russia-born businessman and convicted felon with ties to President Donald Trump of hacking into a Hollywood friend's electronics and accessing confidential information about her celebrity contacts and Hollywood projects.
Felix Sater denied those allegations on Monday, telling The Associated Press they had absolutely no truth to them.
Stella Bulochnikov Stolper, a former manager for the singer Mariah Carey, sued Sater and his personal assistant in New York on Friday, alleging they created an electronic backdoor to tap into her computers, smart phones and other devices.
The lawsuit said the pair engaged in "willful and malicious" hacking and the "misappropriation of valuable electronically stored property." Stolper is seeking at least $1m in damages and wants them to turn over any pilfered material.
"This is a lame attempt by a former business partner and a former romantic interest to avoid paying her obligations to me under our confidential settlement agreement," Sater told The Associated Press on Monday. "There is absolutely no truth or substance to these farcical allegations."
The settlement agreement was meant to end their business relationship, Sater said.
THEIR RELATIONSHIP
Stolper and Sater grew up together in Brooklyn and reconnected at a funeral in November 2017, eventually getting so close that she allowed him and his personal assistant, Kalsom Kam, to stay over at her Los Angeles home, according to the lawsuit.
Sater wanted Stolper's help pitching his life story to Hollywood and took advantage of her "delicate emotional state" at the time and their shared history to spend more time with her, the lawsuit said.
By last October, Sater and Kam had worn out their welcome, the lawsuit said. Stolper kicked them out after growing frustrated and suspicious of their "increasingly lengthy stays" and "increased meddling in her business, professional and personal affairs," the lawsuit said.
She discovered the alleged hacking a few weeks later, according to the lawsuit. Sater and Kam allegedly stole contracts and scripts belonging to Stolper's production company and material from Stolper's personal files, including her pitches to movie studios and television networks, ideas she hadn't marketed yet, text messages, family photos and financial records.
The lawsuit didn't give a reason that Sater and Kam would have hacked Stolper's computers and devices or what they would have done with the material.
In a statement, Kam said he worked for Sater and Stolper for more than a year, handling things like appointments and emails, and "was completely authorised by Stella to do the work that I was doing."
"I vigorously deny the false allegations that have been made," Kam said.
A FORMER MANAGER OF MARIAH CAREY'S
Stolper was Carey's manager for about three years until a nasty split in 2017. Shortly thereafter, Stolper sued the songstress for unfair dismissal, unpaid money and sexual harassment.
The pair reached an agreement in early 2019 which resulted in Stolper to "discontinue this action against Mariah Carey with prejudice, with each party to bear its own attorneys’ fees and costs," Stolper’s attourney told People magazine in a statement at the time.
READ MORE HERE:
Sater, a former Mafia informant who was convicted in a stock fraud scheme, was involved in trying to jump start the Moscow project, which has been the subject of scrutiny as special counsel Robert Mueller's investigates Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Trump's former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty last year to telling Congress that the Moscow venture was dead by January 2016 when, in reality, work on it persisted deep into the presidential campaign. Cohen testified last week that Trump's lawyers reviewed and edited his statement to Congress.
Cohen said Sater also talked with him about having Trump visit Russia during the campaign. Sater was also involved in trying to get the White House to look at a Ukrainian peace proposal that favored Russia. Cohen told a Congressional hearing last week that Sater once had an office on the same floor as Trump in Trump Tower.
In the past, Trump has said he doesn't know Sater well. In a taped deposition in 2013 he said: "If he were sitting in the room right now, I really wouldn't know what he looked like."
