David Beckham was suspected of having late night hotel trysts with multiple women behind-the-back of his Posh Spice wife Victoria, according to court papers filed by a magazine publisher being sued by the soccer superstar in a massive $25 million libel writ. In Touch Weekly and Bauer, one of the world’s largest publishers, used the privilege of court papers to make the seedy allegations against dad-of-three Beckham, claiming in the papers they suspected he carried on an affair with a Los Angeles-based lingerie saleswoman and would secretly meet her at the Figueroa Hotel near Staples Center after LA Lakers basketball games.
RadarOnline.com has exclusively obtained the explosive documents lodged in a Californian court last week, in which it’s alleged:
* A source told In Touch how the lingerie store worker showed friends text messages she received from Beckham and that In Touch “continued to believe that Beckham did have a relationship with this lingerie saleswoman” even though he and the woman had denied it.
* A source told In Touch that Beckham waited in the lobby at the Sunset Towers Hotel one night “speaking anxiously on the phone” before leaving with a “pretty young blonde woman”.
* At least three sets of independent sources — including “an acquaintance of Beckham” — detailed his strange behavior at two different hotels, at which he “appeared to be spending time with women who were not his wife”.
* Beckham’s nanny saw “suggestive text messages” implying that he had an affair with Shery Shabani, the Beverly Hill mother whose children go to the same posh private school as Beckham’s three boys.
A source close to Beckham — who nows plays for the LA Galaxy — last night told RadarOnline.com he was not concerned about the cheating slurs.
“This is a smokescreen and it is not going to hold up in court,” the close pal said. “He is not backing down, he plans to go full throttle in this matter and this posturing, with no evidence and no facts, isn’t going to stall the inevitable.”
However, the move is a dramatic escalation in the battle against In Touch, its editor Michelle Lee and the mag’s publishers Bauer — owed by billionaire German businessman Heinz Bauerwhich — which printed sensational claims that he romped with a Bosnian hooker. Beckham, 35, is also suing the former prostitute Imra Nici, 26, who peddled the story that she slept with him for $10,000 cash in London and New York in 2007.
In court papers, In Touch’s executive editor Deborah Baer said the mag received information concerning stories detailing how Beckham engaged in “extramarital affairs” before it published Nici’s pack of claims.
“Well before we received the information concerning Mr. Beckham’s relationship with Irma Nici… the magazine had for months been working on other stories that built on Beckham’s reputation for adultery,” Baer wrote.
“First, in approximately March 2010, one of our Los Angeles-based reporters received information from a source who said he or she was aware that a woman who worked at a lingerie store in Los Angeles had had an affair with David Beckham.
“We learned that the lingerie store employee told some of her friends about the affair. We decided to pursue the story.”
The magazine sent a reporter to Hawaii in a bid to speak with the woman’s parents, but were unable to locate her, the documents revealed.
“We also learned that she showed another friend text message she received from Mr. Beckham,” Baer said. “We understood that Mr. Beckham often would meet the lingerie saleswoman at the Figueroa Hotel near the Staples Center, after Lakers games. We sent a reporter to the hotel and confirmed that David Beckham had stayed there more than once. Thereafter, we contacted the woman directly. Ultimately, she denied the story of an affair, as did Mr. Beckham, and we elected not to publish the article. But we continued to believe that Mr. Beckham did have a relationship with this lingerie saleswoman.”
Baer also recalled how one of the magazine’s sources had reported seeing Beckham at the Sunset Towers Hotel on Hollywood’s famed Sunset Boulevard.
“After dining, Mr. Beckham waited in the lobby for more than an hour, speaking anxiously on the phone and claiming to wait for a ride,” she said. “Another source at the hotel confirmed that Mr. Beckham ultimately left that night with a pretty young blonde woman. Further, this source recounted that this was not the first time he saw Mr. Beckham meet women at the hotel in the past and leave with them.”
The magazine executive also alleged how it learned Beckham’s nanny had seen “suggestive text messages” that implied he was having an affair with Shery Shabani, a Hollywood jeweller to the stars.
As RadarOnline.com was first to reveal, Beckham was named in a divorce case by the woman’s “jealous” and “delusional” ex-husband, who claimed Beckham had an affair with the married mother-of-two. Beckham and his Spice Girls’ wife are claiming the huge sum – around $25 million – plus punitive damages, alleging libel, slander and intentional infliction of emotional distress, given the publisher was expressly warned that the story was total fabrication. The couple’s writ states: “The case arises from defendants’ publication of lies to make money for themselves and to embarrass and inflict emotional distress upon Beckham, a world-famous athlete. Defendants published these statements with actual malice and with intent to profit by causing harm to Beckham.”
Nevertheless, Bauer has filed a motion to strike the case from court, because it said it “did nothing more than report what it believed was absolutely true” based on the word of Nici and notorious madam Kristin Davis, who served four months in prison for supplying prostitutes to New York’s elite.
“In Touch Weekly published its article based on the firsthand recollections of Irma Nici as confirmed by Kristin Davis and the other woman,” it is said, in the filing. “It was a story whose many details were independently verified by the magazine and one that was entirely consistent with the magazine’s own prior reporting, as well as previous widespread reports of other affairs by Beckham, including at least one with another prostitute. In the face of this evidence, Beckham provided only a general denial. In the end, the magazine and its editors absolutely believed in the truth of the story and most certainly had no serious doubts about its accuracy.”
It added, “Beckham… offers nothing other than his word to dispute the well- researched, well-sourced story that In Touch Weekly published. He ignores the years of press – unchallenged by any legal claims – documenting his prior affairs, including another one with a ‘high class prostitute’.”
