Testifying on her own behalf in her defamation suit against “Sugar” Shane Mosley, the boxer’s ex-wife told a jury Tuesday that his alleged accusations of bigamy left her stunned and impacted her emotional well-being and that of their daughter.
“I was shocked,” said 41-year-old Jin Mosley. “I didn’t really understand what was going on.”
The plaintiff said the accusations left her with hives and regenerated panic attacks she had not experienced in years. She said her daughter wondered if her mother had committed a crime.
“She was very upset, she was confused,” Jin Mosley said. “She was (worried) that I was going to go to jail.”
She said she told her daughter to stay off the Internet, adding that even her relatives in South Korea heard about the boxer’s remarks.
In her lawsuit filed in November 2015, she alleges her ex-husband defamed her that year by telling a celebrity website videographer, “Man, my so- called wife was married when I was married.”
The encounter with the videographer occurred at the same downtown Los Angeles courthouse where the defamation trial is being heard.
At the time, the boxer was trying to freeze the assets in his divorce judgment based on a document obtained by his family law attorneys that Jin Mosley’s prior marriage was not finalized until September 2006, according to his current lawyers’ court papers.
The second allegedly defamatory statement occurred later in 2015 when he told a FightHype.com reporter at Los Angeles International Airport, “So we got married in 2002 and she got married to some guy in 1995 and was still married to him when we got married.”
Jin Mosley also alleges the fighter belittled her in a series of tweets that are not part of the defamation case. Mosley, now 45, testified he never sent the tweets and that someone who performed public relations work for him to promote his boxing career may have been responsible.
The plaintiff testified that in addition to the three children she had with Mosley, she also had a son with another man when she was a teen and that her oldest offspring is now 23 years old. She said she did not marry her father’s son, but did wed another man in 1995. She said the two separated in 1996 and that she eventually obtained a divorce in 2002.
She said she met Mosley through a mutual friend in 1999 and that she had already begun living with him and become the mother of their first two children before her divorce from her first husband was finalized.
Jin Mosley said she and the boxer wed in Las Vegas in November 2002 and that her new husband was aware of her divorce from her prior spouse.
“We both knew that I was free to remarry,” she said.
She testified that she was not only his wife, but also became his personal assistant and later his manager.
“There was a lot of chaos in his circle and I just stepped up to the bigger role,” she said.
The Mosleys’ divorce was finalized in June 2011. She said the fighter never questioned her about the validity of her 2002 divorce from her first husband.
Jin Mosley said she was in her native state of New York when the boxer’s bigamy allegations were made during the two interviews. She said the disparagement continued through the subsequent tweets when she returned to California.
“It was pretty much every day this was going on,” she said. “I’m usually pretty resilient, but this went on for quite a while.”
She said the impact of the statements has not entirely abated in her neighborhood.
“It kind of still is the talk of the town,” she said.
Cross-examined by defense attorney Michelle Iarusso, Jin Mosley acknowledged that she sent some sharp tweets in response to those of her ex- husband, that she has smoked marijuana in the past and that she does not recognize her first husband’s 2006 divorce document.
Jin Mosley also said she had a role in the Bravo alternative series “Friends to Lovers” in 2015, but believed the show did not have many viewers.
–City News Service