'Sarah' Author Loses Fraud Lawsuit

Jun 23, 04:10 PM

Current Headlines: A New York jury has ordered author Laura Albert to pay a film company $116,500 in a fraud lawsuit over her best-selling book Sarah.

Albert had been taken to court after it was learned she had created the supposed teenage writer JT LeRoy and his story was a hoax. Antidote International Films had paid $45,000 for the rights to the book to a company formed by Albert rather than to LeRoy.

LeRoy had been a literary star for a brief period until it was learned that Albert was the true author of Sarah, and that LeRoy had been played in public by a female acquaintance.

The New York Post said Albert had argued that Sarah had been her way of coping with her own abusive and tumultuous childhood.