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- It shapes up as one of San Diego's strangest lawsuits:
a case that involves internationally known writer and mind-body healer
Deepak Chopra and allegations of greed, illicit sex and stolen garbage.
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- Chopra is suing a woman he alleges tried to blackmail
him for $50,000 in return for not exposing allegations that Chopra had
trysts with a prostitute, which Chopra denies.
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- Chopra, who was born in India and now lives in La Jolla,
has gained an international following for his beliefs that awareness
of the mind-body connection can facilitate healing and lead to inner
peace. He is taking a break from the lecture circuit to attend the four-week
trial.
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- He sat attentively in court yesterday as his attorney,
Carla DiMare, outlined Chopra's case.
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- DiMare said that Joyce Weaver, who worked with Chopra,
tried to blackmail him and falsely contended that Chopra had sexually
harassed her.
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- "She keeps going after him even though she knows
the story is false because she wants money," DiMare said.
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- The lawyer said that attorneys from Gray, Cary, Ware
and Freidenrich -- the city's largest private law firm -- demanded $1
million from Chopra to avoid filing of a lawsuit by Weaver in which she
contended that he sexually harassed her.
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- Chopra was forced to file a lawsuit against Weaver to
end her efforts to destroy his reputation, DiMare said.
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- During a break in the court proceedings, Chopra said
he filed the lawsuit "as a matter of principle" to protect
his reputation.
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- "I don't feel any hostility (toward Weaver),"
he said. "I just feel that blackmail shouldn't be allowed."
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- Weaver's attorney, Peter Friesen, said Chopra did not
file his lawsuit against Weaver until after she had filed a claim against
him accusing him of sexual harassment. Friesen said that before Chopra
made the allegation in his lawsuit he never told any of his business
associates of his contention that Weaver tried to blackmail him.
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- Weaver was an employee of the Sharp Center for Mind-Body
Medicine, an institute for alternative medicine associated with Chopra
that was owned by Sharp HealthCare.
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- Friesen said Weaver worked with Chopra and helped plan
some of the seminars he conducted on his alternative medicine theories.
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- DiMare said Weaver stalked Chopra and constantly wanted
to be near him. He dismissed her as an emotionally unstable woman, DiMare
said.
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- "Ms. Weaver is a very, very angry woman and she
was particularly angry at Dr. Chopra because he wasn't paying attention
to her," DiMare said.
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- But Friesen contended that Weaver and Chopra had a close
working relationship until spring 1994 when Chopra made sexual advances
toward Weaver and she resisted him.
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- In June 1995, Judy Bangert, identified in court as a
former prostitute, called the center where Weaver worked and contended
that she had had sex with Chopra. Weaver taped a voice mail message from
Bangert left on the telephone of one of Chopra's colleagues.
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- DiMare said Weaver approached Chopra three times offering
not to go to the media with the information about Bangert if Chopra paid
her $50,000. Friesen denied that any blackmail attempts occurred.
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- In September 1995, a private investigator was caught
taking six to 10 bags of trash from the Del Mar offices of one of Chopra's
attorneys, Michael Flynn, a partner in DiMare's law firm.
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- DiMare said the Gray, Cary law firm gave legal advice
to the investigator. Three weeks after the trash was stolen, Weaver hired
attorneys from Gray, Cary to represent her in her sexual harassment case
against Chopra. The firm then hired the investigator who had stolen the
trash to work on Weaver's case, DiMare said.
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- Friesen downplayed the trash incident, saying it was
later shown that the person who stole the trash had no connection to
the case against Chopra. He said Weaver did not contact the Gray, Cary
law firm until two months after the trash was stolen.
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- Weaver's sexual harassment claim against Chopra has since
been thrown out of court. But she still has claims in her lawsuit against
Chopra of retaliation and wrongful termination.
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- DiMare said Weaver took a stress-disability leave from
her job in December 1995 and lost her job as part of a massive layoff
at Sharp in May 1996.
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- The jurors who will decide Chopra's claims against Weaver
will also be asked to decide on her allegations that Chopra retaliated
against her when she filed her sexual harassment claim against him.
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- DiMare said Weaver contacted a reporter for The Weekly
Standard magazine, which published an article in 1996 about the allegations
concerning a tryst between Chopra and the prostitute. Friesen said Weaver
never talked to the reporter until after the article was published.
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- The Standard later published a retraction of its story,
and Chopra won a settlement of more than $1 million from the publication,
DiMare said.
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- Friesen told jurors that there is evidence to support
the allegations about Chopra and the prostitute. He said that credit
card receipts made out to the woman appear to have been signed by Chopra
and that Chopra's contention that the credit card was used by a personal
assistant does not appear to be credible.
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- DiMare told jurors that Chopra has had to pay more than
$1 million to protect himself from Weaver's allegations and that Chopra's
reputation has been harmed.
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- "The damage has been done and the damage has been
enormous," DiMare said
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- Copyright 1999 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
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