Oscar De La Hoya Sex Lawsuit Tossed, Lawyer, Plaintiff Sanctioned

The Oscar De La Hoya sex lawsuit may finally be coming to its end. A New York judge has knocked out the civil tort suit against the retired fighter.
Angelica Marie Cecora, the plaintiff, sued De La Hoya for $5 million alleging false imprisonment, assault, battery, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, New York Daily News reports.
Judge Paul Wooten called Cecora's suit frivolous. He followed with a one-two of his own by ordering Cecora to pay De La Hoya's legal fees and imposed a $500 sanction on both her and her attorney.
That wasn't the end of it, either.
In the court's opinion, Wooten finished off Cecora and Robert Anthony Evans Jr. (her attorney) with a flurry of choice words. He chastised them for playing up to the media by holding a press conference in front of the courthouse.
Wooten also condemned Evans for his attempt to make a spectacle of De La Hoya's absence at court. He chided Evans for knowing it to be common practice for only attorneys to appear in civil cases.
Monetary sanctions against parties are a pretty rare occurrence. An attorney and/or their client have to do some pretty bad things to get one.
Typically, the threshold is if a lawsuit is considered frivolous. In New York, this means that the lawsuit itself is determined to not have any merit, meant only to harass someone, or to contain false factual statements.
De La Hoya only asked for sanctions based off of Cecora's emotional distress and false imprisonment claims. And looking at Cecora's argument, she's lucky the sanctions weren't more than $500.
Cecora alleges that she and her roommate had sex with De La Hoya at the Ritz Carlton Hotel. She claims, among other things, that she rebuffed four attempts by the pugilist to have sex with her. She also claimed she was afraid to leave the room, which caused her to miss a dentist appointment.
Somehow all of this was supposed to add up to $5 million.
In any case, it looks like Oscar De La Hoya's sex lawsuit might finally be down for the count.
Related Resources:
- Judge Sanctions Lawyer and Plaintiff for Sex Claim Lawsuit Against Boxing Champ (ABA Journal)
- Latest Oscar De La Hoya News (FindLaw's Legal Pulse)
- The Real Frivolous Lawsuit Crisis (FindLaw)