Shera Bechard, the former Playmate who reached a $1.6 million hush-money deal with Trump donor Elliott Broidy to hide a secret affair and abortion, was ordered Tuesday to give attorney Michael Avenatti a copy of her mysterious lawsuit filed Friday.
The judge issued the ruling after a tense hearing Tuesday. Avenatti received his copy of the still-sealed complaint while standing outside the courtroom during a break. The judge said the parties had to keep the contents secret.
Avenatti was named as a defendant along with Broidy and Bechard's former lawyer Keith Davidson in the complaint that was conditionally sealed for 20 days upon its filing Friday.
Avenatti said he was blindsided by the action and rushed to court Tuesday demanding a copy.
"This was a complete ambush by the plaintiff and is absolutely improper," Avenatti said. "They need to either serve me immediately or dismiss me ... What is going on here is a game, and it's entirely inappropriate."
He claimed he learned about the lawsuit from a Wall Street Journal reporter early Friday and accused Bechard's lawyer of leaking the sealing order to the newspaper.
"You can't sue someone in a very high-profile, public case, disseminate info to the Wall Street Journal, then tie defendant's hands behind his back, when he doesn't know what the allegations are, and let him twist in the wind. You can't have it both ways," he said.
Avenatti _ famous as the outspoken, Twitter-loving lawyer representing porn star Stormy Daniels in her separate hush-money battle with President Donald Trump _ said Bechard could have filed a "bare-bones" complaint if she "truly wanted to litigate" her dispute with Broidy.
"What they want to do is have a circus and a show in the media and put pressure on Mr. Broidy," he said, suggesting his attachment was a way to threaten Broidy with a harsh spotlight. "That's not appropriate."
Judge Ernest M. Hiroshige declined to overturn the order conditionally sealing the complaint for 20 days but said Bechard's lawyer Victor O'Connell had to hand over the "entire un-redacted complaint" by email outside the courtroom and return for further arguments later Tuesday.
"It is under seal and they may not disclose any of the contents of the complaint," the Los Angeles County Superior Court judge said.
"I'm happy that I'm going to finally get to see what the allegations are against me, but I think the public and the press should have full access to the complaint," Avenatti told the New York Daily News during the break.
Avenatti previously told the Daily News he had no idea why he was pulled into the legal battle with Broidy.
Bechard's complaint came just days after Broidy's reported decision to halt his $200,000 installment payments on the pact.
A source told the Daily News on Friday that Bechard is alleging Avenatti spoke publicly about her private pact with Broidy shortly before the Wall Street Journal confirmed the agreement in April.
"In last 18 mos, Mr. Cohen negotiated yet another hush NDA, this time on behalf of a prominent GOP donor who had a relationship with a LA woman, impregnated her and then made sure she had an abortion. The deal provided for multiple payments across many months," Avenatti wrote in a Twitter post on April 12.
Speaking to the Daily News last week, Avenatti called the accusation "laughable."
"I never knew the terms of the (Bechard deal) or that there was any confidentiality provision," he told the Daily News. "If that is the basis for them suing me, they should be suing the Wall Street Journal reporters and every other reporter that reported on the alleged agreement."
Davidson brokered Bechard's deal with Broidy and was the same lawyer who represented Daniels when she signed her $130,000 hush-money agreement with Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen.
Cohen, meanwhile, was the lawyer who represented Broidy in the Bechard deal.
According to a recent story in the Wall Street Journal, Broidy decided to withhold his most recent $200,000 installment payment to Bechard because he now considers their agreement dead.
"Elliott specifically was paying for confidentiality that would shield his family from the embarrassing mistake he made," Broidy's lawyer Chris Clark from Latham & Watkins in New York told the Wall Street Journal. "We can prove there was an intentional breach that renders the contract null and void."
Clark claimed Davidson improperly disclosed details about the Bechard agreement to Avenatti.
Bechard reportedly got pregnant during her affair with Broidy and later had an abortion.
Her privacy pact, reached in late 2017, used the same aliases _ "David Dennison" and "Peggy Peterson" _ that Cohen used in the $130,000 NDA deal he brokered with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, in 2016.
Avenatti reportedly hinted during an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" in April that Broidy might not be the one who needed the agreement with Bechard.
"I think at some point we are going to find out if, in fact, the client in connection with the ($1.6 million) settlement was, in fact, Mr. Broidy. I'm going to leave it at that," Avenatti said, according to RawStory.com.
A Broidy source previously told the Daily News that any speculation Broidy was helping silence Bechard over an affair she actually had with Trump was "beyond absurd."
"No one, no one would put their family through what Elliott's family has gone through on this for Donald Trump. He didn't really know Donald Trump. He was his third choice in the campaign," the source said.
The source claimed Broidy quickly admitted to his alleged affair with Bechard when contacted by the Wall Street Journal because it was the truth.
"That is absolutely the kind of person he is. (He) issued a statement, very simple, accepting responsibility for what he did, that was it," the source said.
