Jeff Bezos Desires His Girlfriend’s Brother to Cowl $1.7 Million in Authorized Charges After He Unsuccessfully Sued Bezos for Defamation

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, has asked Michael Sanchez for over $ 1.7 million to cover legal fees. This is the latest in a legal battle between Bezos and his girlfriend’s brother over Bezos’ leaked texts.

Entrepreneur New Years Leader

Get inspiration from the business resources in our guide and help you meet your goals in 2021.

January 27, 2021 3 min read

This story originally appeared on Business Insider

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, is demanding over $ 1.7 million from his girlfriend’s brother, Michael Sanchez, to cover legal fees incurred as a result of his unsuccessful defamation lawsuit against Sanchez.

Bezos and his personal security chief, Gavin de Becker, filed a motion in the Los Angeles District Supreme Court on Friday to compel Sanchez to pay them $ 1,676,919.50 in attorney fees and $ 36,019.26 in miscellaneous costs to reimburse them for defending a defamation case against Sanchez last year.

“These fees and costs are reasonable and the amount of work done was what was necessary to defend vigorously against the abusive and ever-changing case of the plaintiff. Consequently, the defendant’s request for fees should be granted in full,” says the application signed by Bezos’ attorney Edward Takashima.

Tom Warren, an attorney for Sanchez, told Insider in a statement that “Mr. Bezos’ fee request is obscene or even grotesque on many levels.”

The inquiry is the latest development in a Bezos-Sanchez tabloid drama that began more than two years ago. In January 2019, hours after Bezos and his wife MacKenzie announced they were divorcing, the National Enquirer revealed that Bezos was in a relationship with Lauren Sanchez, a helicopter pilot and former television host.

See Also: 9 Mind-blowing Facts That Show Just How Rich Jeff Bezos, the Richest Man in the World, really is

The investigator said he conducted a four-month investigation into Bezos and Sanchez’s relationship and received “raunchy messages” the couple sent each other, some of which were published on the tabloid. The investigator also said he had racy photos of Bezos and Sanchez, including one that was too explicit to describe in print.

Bezos funded an investigation into the leaked news led by de Becker. De Becker told The Daily Beast at the time that Michael Sanchez was “among the people we talked to and looked at” during the investigation and that “strong evidence suggests political motives” to provide information to the investigator forward what Sanchez denied.

In February 2020, Sanchez filed the defamation lawsuit against Bezos and de Becker, alleging both men falsely accused him of providing the National Enquirer with nude photos of the Amazon CEO. Sanchez alleged in the lawsuit that Bezos told journalists he turned the pictures over to the tabloid, but Sanchez said he never had the photos in his possession.

Bezos quickly filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit under California’s anti-SLAPP law, designed to protect against frivolous lawsuits. In November 2020, Judge John P. Doyle ruled in Bezos’ favor, calling the evidence “inadmissible hearsay” and dismissing Sanchez’s lawsuit. The most recent motion states that Bezos and de Becker are entitled to reclaim legal fees as part of this law.

Bezos, who owns roughly 11% of Amazon, is the second richest person in the world with a net worth of $ 192 billion.