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Francis, who purportedly relocated to Mexico, “has been repeatedly cautioned that failure to comply might result in imposition of a sanction” but “has nonetheless chosen to flout the Court’s authority and disregard Order after Order,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Lois Goodman said in a report released yesterday.
Goodman urged imposing attorney’s fees on Francis — who has been representing himself since his attorney pulled out of the case in January 2014.
Goodman said Francis “has resisted providing the court or opposing counsel with contact information, and declined to hand over documents sought in discovery,” the Law Journal report says.
Francis was sued seven years ago by Amber Arpaio, a dental assistant from Stillwater Township, who said her identity was stolen for a 2003 “Girls Gone Wild” video starring Ashley Dupré.
Dupré, clad only in a towel, holds up Arpaio’s driver’s license to the camera, claiming to be her. She purportedly got the license after Arpaio lost it during a Jersey Shore vacation.
The video drew widespread attention after The New York Times reported that Spitzer was caught on a federal wiretap arranging to meet Dupré at a Washington, D.C. hotel. He resigned two days later.
Dupré, in turn, became “the most famous prostitute in America.” Hoping to capitalize on her sudden stardom, the Mantra Films group offered her $1 million to pose for a magazine feature and participate in a “Girls Gone Wild” promo tour.
The offer was withdrawn after Francis discovered video of Dupré from five years earlier, when she want on a “GGW” bus tour.
Dupré sued Francis over the video, saying she was only 17 at the time and didn’t understand what a legal release was. Francis responded by releasing a video of her, covered only in a towel, saying she is 18 and agreeing to participate.
Her name, she says on the video, is Amber Arpaio. A shot is then shown of a New Jersey driver’s license with Arpaio’s name on it.
Dupré dropped the case.
Soon after, Arpaio brought her own, claiming invasion of privacy, misappropriation, unauthorized use and defamatory injury, among other counts.
A judge previously awarded a $3 million settlement following a hearing that included testimony from Arpaio, her father, and an “expert on the dissemination of information through the Internet” that showed she had suffered emotional distress from “being mistaken as somehow affiliated with Dupre or ‘Girls Gone Wild.’
The expert showed how a simple Google search of Arpaio’s name produced more than 130,000 hits connected to sites that mostly contained porn.
The real Ashley Rae Maika DiPietro, who took the stage name Dupré (and was previously known as “Kristen”), went on to become a singer and sex columnist for the New York Post.
READ MORE: Fee Sanction Urged Against ‘Girls Gone Wild’ Creator
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