Dupre is the call girl linked to the downfall of former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer.
Entertainment attorney Richard C. Wolfe claims in the suit that Dupre was 17, intoxicated and thus not legally competent to enter into a contract when she was cherry-picked by Girls Gone Wild execs at Miami Beach’s Chesterfield Hotel.
“After plaintiff became drunk, they induced her into exposing her breasts while being filmed,” the suit said. “While drunk, plaintiff was told to sign a release.”
Wolfe also said in the suit filed at U.S. District Court in Miami that “defendants did not explain to plaintiff that her image and likeness would be used for advertising and promotional purposes, nor did plaintiff realize this, since she was only 17 years old.”
Dupre gained notoriety in March when it was revealed that she was the high-priced call girl named “Kristen” in court documents who was hired by Spitzer for at least one tryst at a posh Washington hotel. Spitzer, known as “Client 9” in the documents, resigned as New York governor a few days after the scandal broke.
After the tryst became public, Francis made a public $1 million offer for Dupre to appear in a “Girls Gone Wild” video and go on a promotional tour, then rescinded the offer after he realized he already had footage of Dupre from 2003. She since has had offers from Playboy, Penthouse and Kick Ass Pictures.
Francis and employee Cyrus Koewing, the suit said, later set up a series of websites — www.ashleydupre.net, www.girlsgonewildashleydupre.com, www.ashleyduprecallgirl.com, www.onelivecall.com/Ashley_Dupre.html — to draw Internet surfers to a site set up to sell “Girls Gone Wild” videos.
The website is “written in the first person to induce the viewer to believe it is owned, controlled or endorsed by plaintiff, when it is not,” the suit said. “Rather, the website is designed to sell videos and DVDs of defendants.”
The suit asks for profits derived from the alleged false use of name and image, as well as damages and attorneys fees. It also asks Francis and Girls Gone Wild parent company Mantra Entertainment to forfeit or cancel the domain names.
Francis, in a statement, said he was surprised by the filing of the suit.
“We have not publicly released any new video of Ms. Dupre, due to corporate policy of not using footage of individuals younger than 18,” Francis said. “It is incomprehensible that Ms. Dupre could claim she did not give her consent to be filmed by Girls Gone Wild, when in fact we have videotape of her giving consent, while showing her identification.”
Wolfe, a name partner of Miami’s Wolfe & Goldstein, did not respond to XBIZ for comment by post time.
