A Los Angeles federal judge dismissed adult film actress Stormy Daniels’ defamation claim against Michael Cohen, a former attorney for President Donald Trump, according to court papers obtained Tuesday.
In a written order late Monday, U.S. District Judge S. James Otero granted Daniels’ request to drop the civil allegation against Cohen “with prejudice,” meaning that it is dismissed permanently.
A claim brought by Daniels against Trump in Los Angeles federal court over a nondisclosure agreement that involved a $130,000 payout to the actress — who claims she had an affair with Trump more than a decade ago — is still pending.
Daniels’ attorney Michael Avenatti tweeted that Daniels “did not lose anything” as a result of the dismissal.
“We won the motion and Cohen lost across the board,” Avenatti wrote. “The NDA case continues and the likelihood of large (attorneys’) fees for Stormy is high.”
Otero also denied Cohen’s request for legal fees.
The judge previously dismissed Daniels’ allegations that the president defamed her on Twitter when he suggested she had lied about being threatened to keep quiet about their alleged decade-old relationship. Otero tossed the claim in October on free speech grounds but ordered Daniels to pay the president more than $293,300 in legal fees.
In the remaining litigation, Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, claims the nondisclosure agreement she signed prior to the 2016 presidential election is unenforceable and should be negated because Trump never personally signed it. The suit also claimed that the payment to Daniels broke campaign finance laws.
In December, Cohen was sentenced in New York to three years in federal prison for, among other things, arranging the payment to Daniels and another woman in exchange for their silence about alleged affairs with Trump. The payments, according to prosecutors, violated federal campaign finance laws.
Daniels, 39, has said she had sex once with the married Trump in 2006 and carried on a platonic relationship with him for about a year afterward. She detailed the alleged affair in her book “Full Disclosure,” published late last year. Trump has denied any sexual relationship with Daniels.