A former beauty queen will have to pay Donald Trump and the Miss USA pageant $5 million, a federal judge has ruled, even though she says the large award will devastate her financially.
Trump sued former Miss Pennsylvania Sheena Monnin after she claimed the 2012 Miss USA pageant was "fraudulent,"
reports The New York Post.
After she lost the pageant, Monnin claimed that another contestant saw a written list of five finalists backstage, before winners were officially announced the next day.
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The day after the pageant, she hung up her tiara and resigned her Miss Pennsylvania title, branding the Miss USA contest as "fraudulent, lacking in morals, inconsistent and in many ways trashy."
Trump, who owns the Miss USA pageant, said Monnin was "angry that she lost" and sued her over the "false and reckless allegations."
The case ended up with an arbitrator, who
ruled in December that Monnin defamed the pageant and owed Trump the money. She sought to have the $5 million judgment overturned but now federal judge J. Paul Oetken has refused to overturn the verdict.
Counsel for Trump said all steps will be taken to collect the $5 million from Monnin.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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