Felix Sater, an established commercial enterprise associate of President Donald Trump, changed into sued by way of a California girl who claims he hacked her business computer systems and smartphones so he ought to pitch his very own life story to Hollywood and the media.
Stella Bulochnikov Stolper, a tv producer and one-time agent for Mariah Carey, says Sater is a former family buddy who won unauthorized get entry to her computer systems while he was staying at her domestic in Calabasas, California, after they reconnected in November 2017, in line with a lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York. Sater, in a telephone interview, disputed the claims.
Sater is a Russian-born U.S. Citizen and developer who twice pleaded guilty to felonies inside the 1990s and changed into a former undercover asset for the FBI. He helped Trump with development deals, such as ventures in Russia, and even had an office in Trump tower on the same ground as the billionaire, in step with former Trump legal professional Michael Cohen. Sater is scheduled to testify March 14 before the House Intelligence Committee approximately the Trump Organization’s effort to construct a Trump Tower undertaking in Moscow.
Stolper, a TV producer, and businesswoman stated she knew Sater growing up in Brooklyn and said the two reconnected after meeting at a funeral. Sater “took gain” of her “delicate emotional kingdom,” Stolper alleges, saying she invited him to return and live with her whenever he became in California.
Sater only renewed their acquaintance because he wanted to “leverage” her Hollywood connections and introduce him to enterprise insiders, “in order that Sater should pitch media endeavors based totally upon his own turbulent existence,” she stated.
Their courting soured after Sater’s visits to her domestic grew longer. Stolper says he started out meddling in her non-public affairs in addition to that of her commercial enterprise, Wikked Entertainment Inc.
‘Lame’
Sater and his assistant, Kalsom Kam, who become additionally named in the lawsuit, disputed the claims.
“This is a lame attempt from a former business companion and romantic hobby to keep away from her responsibilities to me underneath our confidential agreement,” Sater stated Monday in a telephone interview.
By email, Kam said he worked for each Sater and Stolper for greater than a yr, managing appointments, emails, and other topics.
“I was absolutely legal via Stella to do the work that I changed into doing,” Kam stated. “They had been commercial enterprise partners and have been romantically involved. It is my know-how that there is a settlement between them. I vigorously deny the false allegations which have been made.”
After Sater sooner or later moved out of her Southern California domestic on Oct. 26, 2018, Stolper said she found out that Sater and Kam had gained unauthorized far off access to her computer systems and gadgets that allowed Sater to retrieve her virtual and digital files, such as get right of entry to her contracts with studios and skills, patron offers, scripts, treatments, contracts and different included intellectual belongings.
Sater has even “persisted to get admission to plaintiffs’ computers and devices thru the unauthorized backdoor far-flung get entry to,” Stolper stated. The fit that alleges two claims of unauthorized pc get right of entry to, seeks punitive damages of at least $2 million and a court order barring Sater from continuing to get right of entry to Stolper’s computers and devices in addition to from disseminating any of her proprietary statistics.
Stolper’s suit was filed in the same courthouse wherein Sater secretly pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with the government. The U.S. Would later say he helped investigations concerning the Mafia, the Russian mob, al-Qaeda and unspecified foreign governments.
