Lawsuits accusing Donald Trump of sexually assaulting a child in the 1990s appear to have been orchestrated by an eccentric anti-Trump campaigner with a record of making outlandish claims about celebrities.
Norm Lubow, a former producer on the Jerry Springer TV show, has previously been involved with disputed allegations that OJ Simpson bought illegal drugs on the day Simpson’s wife was murdered, and that Kurt Cobain’s widow had the Nirvana frontman killed.
Court filings in California and New York against Trump, purportedly on behalf of a woman using the name Katie Johnson, have in recent weeks alleged that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee raped Johnson when she was 13. Trump vehemently denies the allegations.
A publicist using the pseudonym “Al Taylor” is acting as a representative for Johnson, and has been shopping around to media outlets a video of a woman who wears a disguise while recounting the allegations against Trump. “Taylor” said in telephone calls last month that he was seeking $1m for the tape. Jezebel has published a segment of the video along with a detailed account of how the allegations against Trump were being pushed to reporters.
A telephone number and an email address used by “Taylor” have also been used by Lubow, according to three sources who have worked with them. A longtime associate of Lubow also told the Guardian that Lubow used the identity “Al Taylor”.
“Taylor” told the Guardian that he helped the alleged victim Johnson put together her first lawsuit against Trump, which was filed in California earlier this year. “She is a friend of mine,” he said, declining to make her available for interview.
He then became threatening when asked more about his motivations in seeking the money for the video and about his true identity. “Just be warned: we’ll sue you if we don’t like what you write,” he said. “We’ll sue your ass, own your ass and own your newspaper’s ass as well, punk.”
In 2011, “Al Taylor” claimed to cable news channels and gossip websites that he was negotiating a $1m deal for an exclusive TV interview with Casey Anthony, who was acquitted in a high-profile trial in Florida of killing her young daughter. Anthony’s attorneys denied the claims and the interview never took place.
The Guardian has established that a photograph supplied to those media outlets to illustrate the interviews, purporting to be of “Al Taylor”, was in fact a picture of Al Bowman, a minor Hollywood promoter who has known Lubow for more than 20 years. Bowman, also a former Jerry Springer Show producer, claims to have been a chauffeur to celebrities such as Whitney Houston.
In telephone interviews, Bowman insisted that he knew nothing about the lawsuits against Trump. Bowman said he actually supported Trump’s campaign for president and intended to vote for him – a claim backed up by a series of pro-Trump postings in past months on his personal Facebook page. Bowman’s accent and tone of voice appeared not to match that used by “Taylor” during the 2011 cable news interviews and in recent phone calls.
Bowman eventually said he knew the true identity of the man involved in the action against Trump, and that it was a former colleague of his. “Al Taylor’s real name is Norm Lubow,” he said.
Speaking about the lawsuit against Trump, “Al Taylor” first introduced himself to the Guardian as “the attorney in California”, before later clarifying that he was not a lawyer. “My brother and sister were attorneys,” he said. Lubow’s brother Owen is an attorney, as was their late sister Barbara. A message left for Owen Lubow was not returned.
There are further detailed connections between Lubow and “Al Taylor”. An email address for Norm Lubow that was provided by Bowman matched an email address that, according to two sources who have done business with “Al Taylor”, is also used by “Taylor”. A telephone number for Lubow provided by Bowman matched a number used by one of these sources for reaching “Taylor”. A separate cellphone number used by “Taylor”, which was listed on the California lawsuit against Trump, has the same area code, 760, which covers the city of Palm Desert – Lubow’s last known address.
Lubow, 55, did not return a subsequent series of telephone calls, text messages, emails and online messages over the past two weeks seeking confirmation that he was indeed “Al Taylor”. Past media reports have also identified “Taylor” as a spokesman for the Erotic Heritage Museum and the Hustler strip club, both in Las Vegas. Messages left for “Taylor” at both the museum and the club were not returned.
Statements made by Lubow over the past two decades on a variety of topics have been called into question.
In 2014, using his comic pro-marijuana pseudonym Reverend Bud Green, Lubow claimed to have arranged the replacement of US flags on the Brooklyn Bridge with white flags. The following month, however, German artists came forward with video evidence that they in fact were behind the stunt.
In 1998, guests on Springer’s notoriously wild talkshow alleged that Lubow had encouraged them behind the scenes to stage fights and invent outrageous stories during recordings of the program. The allegation was denied by Lubow and other show staff.
Also in 1998, Lubow appeared wearing a disguise in the controversial documentary film Kurt and Courtney under the name “Jack Briggs” alongside Bowman, the minor Hollywood promoter whose photograph was later used by “Al Taylor” for television interviews. Bowman said “Briggs” was Lubow.
In the film, director Nick Broomfield said Lubow and Bowman had introduced him to Eldon “El Duce” Hoke, a Seattle-based musician who claimed Courtney Love offered him $50,000 to kill her husband Kurt Cobain, the singer and guitarist in the rock band Nirvana. The allegation about Hoke, which became lore among some Nirvana fans following Cobain’s suicide in 1994, was denied by Love.
According to the New York Post, in 1995 Lubow, using the name “Ron X”, also claimed to tabloids that he had sold drugs to OJ Simpson on the day Simpson’s estranged wife Nicole Brown was murdered. Lubow denied the Post’s report.
An attorney brought in to file Katie Johnson’s lawsuit against Trump in New York said any issues around the credibility of “Al Taylor” should not cast doubt on Johnson’s allegations.
The attorney, Thomas Meagher, a patent and intellectual property attorney who said he had never been involved in a case of this kind before. Meagher said he became involved after reading on a minor gossip website that Johnson’s legal action in California had faltered and that she was seeking representation. Meagher acknowledged that “Al Taylor” was acting as a go-between for the woman said to be suing Trump.
Their federal lawsuit filed last month in New York alleges that Johnson, identified this time as “Jane Doe”, was sexually assaulted by Trump in 1994 at the Manhattan home of Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier – and associate of the UK’s Prince Andrew – who was jailed in Florida in 2008 for soliciting sex from an underage girl.
The New York lawsuit was accompanied by a supporting affidavit from a woman using the name “Tiffany Doe”, who claims to have worked for Epstein at the time and procured the young girl for the two men. The allegations made in the suit have been reported by several media outlets.
The legal action in Manhattan follows a near-identical suit in California that made the same allegations against Trump and Epstein. That case was promptly thrown out after a federal judge ruled that the complaint cited statutes that did not apply to it. Epstein has through representatives also denied the allegations.
Alan Garten, an attorney for the Trump Organization, described the allegations against Trump as “a complete fabrication” that appeared to be politically motivated. “This is basically a sham lawsuit brought by someone who desires to impact the presidential election,” said Garten.
Trump’s team said the lawsuit was badly flawed. “I don’t even know if there is a plaintiff,” said Garten. “I don’t know a lawyer worthy of the bar who would put his name to this lawsuit.” Meagher, however, insisted that he had met the plaintiff and separately spoken to her over video-conference. “She definitely exists,” said Meagher.
After repeated questions to “Al Taylor” asking him to confirm he was Norm Lubow went ignored, a text message was eventually sent to the Guardian from a cellphone previously answered several times by “Taylor”.
It said: “This is Katie Johnson. Why do you keep asking for [Lubow]. I do not know and have never met anybody by this name. If you are really a reporter like you claim are and not just a crank call like thousands of other calls I have gotten since my phone number was published throughout the world, then why don’t you ask how it feels to have the pervert who raped me when I was only 13 years running for President of this great country?
“It sickens me every time I see his evil face on TV. I am not after money, I want revenge for what this evil pedophile did to me. He doesn’t deserve to be President, he deserves to be in jail...If you really are a reporter like you told my attorney Tom Meagher, then please publish my statement for the millions of other Rape Victims who have no voice. Thank you, Katie Johnson.”