Former Miss Pennsylvania Sheena Monnin will have to pay Donald Trump and his Miss USA pageant $5 million for defamation after all, despite her pleas the award would “financially devastate” her.
Federal Judge J. Paul Oetken just upheld an arbitrator’s decision that Monnin must pony up for calling the pageant “fraudulent,” even though, “The court does not take lightly that Monnin is compelled to pay . . . a devastating monetary award,” he wrote Tuesday. But he blamed Monnin for not taking the case seriously enough.
He wrote that although the beauty “should have initially engaged in mediation and, later, remained diligent over the course of the [arbitration] process, it is clear . . . she was woefully unaware of both the consequences of her disengagement and the severity of the allegations” against her.
Monnin claimed she wasn’t properly notified about the hearings and there was misconduct by an arbitrator. But the judge ripped her “poor choice of counsel,” who “presented no evidence on her behalf over the course of several months.”
The brouhaha began when Monnin claimed after the 2012 Miss USA pageant that a contestant saw a written list of five finalists backstage before winners were officially announced onstage. Monnin resigned as Miss Pennsylvania the next day and publicly branded the competition as “fraudulent, lacking in morals, inconsistent and in many ways trashy.” Pageant owner Trump sued, calling her accusations “false and reckless” and saying, “She was angry that she lost.”
The case went to an arbitrator, who ruled that Monnin had defamed the Miss USA pageant. She then sought to have the $5 million judgment overturned.
Her current reps at Cole Schotz declined to comment. Her previous lawyer Richard Klineburger III didn’t returns calls.
Trump lawyer Michael D. Cohen said, “We applaud the judge’s very articulate 30-page decision, and will pursue all rights available to Mr. Trump under the law.”