From CNN.com:
Author loses fraud case for writing as a man
NEW YORK (AP) — To writer Laura Albert, her alter ego was a psychological necessity, but to jurors, the fictitious male prostitute JT LeRoy was a fraud.
A Manhattan jury decided Friday that Albert had defrauded a production company that bought the movie rights to an autobiographical novel marketed as being based on LeRoy’s life.
The federal jury, after a short deliberation, awarded $116,500 to Antidote International Films Inc.
The San Francisco author, who went to strange lengths to hide her identity behind the nonexistent LeRoy, condemned the jury’s decision, saying it had ominous implications for artists.
“This goes beyond me,” Albert said. “Say an artist wants to use a pseudonym for political reasons, for performance art. This is a new, dangerous brave new world we are in.”
Antidote’s attorney, Gregory Curtner, said the producers “have sympathy” for Albert.
“I think we would have preferred that we never had to get here,” Curtner said after the verdict.
Albert was identified as the author of “Sarah,” the tale of a truck stop hooker. Her friends donned wigs and posed as LeRoy at book signings and they duped journalists with the phony back story about truck stop sex. Posing as the troubled teen, Albert even made phone calls to a psychiatrist.
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