The lawyer representing Richard Simmons in his libel suit against the National Enquirer and its parent company, American Media Inc., has a history of battling supermarket weeklies — and winning cash for his clients.
Neville Johnson — who has filed suit on behalf of Simmons against the Enquirer for reporting that the exercise guru is transitioning into a woman named Fiona — also went after AMI in 2010 over a front-page story in its sister publication, the Globe, headlined “Obama Love Nest Shocker!”
That suit, on behalf of campaign worker Vera Baker, said “defendants deliberately intended to convey the impression that Baker and President Obama had a sexual encounter at a hotel, which was known to be false.”
Johnson had no comment, but a legal source said the case was quietly settled for an undisclosed sum with both parties sworn to secrecy.
“Johnson sued the Enquirer two other times, and he won’t discuss those cases either,” my source said.
Simmons, 68 — who dropped his very public lifestyle and became something of a recluse three years ago — amended his libel suit earlier this month to add the reporter who wrote the story as a defendant, plus his editor-in-chief, Dylan Howard, and the CEO of AMI, David Pecker.
“They’re saying that Pecker and Howard had direct involvement,” one libel lawyer explained.
An AMI spokesman called it “a desperate move by a lawyer with a very weak legal case who hopes to intimidate AMI into an early settlement. AMI will not, however, be intimidated by Mr. Johnson’s cheap tactics.”
If American Media can’t get the suit dismissed, the spokesman added, it “looks forward to deposing Mr. Simmons to substantiate the facts of its report.”