L. Derek Truitt, better known as former gay porn star and escort Brodie Sinclair, is suing Conde Nast's CEO for defamation and slander. Truitt filed the lawsuit on Tuesday accusing “[David] Geithner and his cronies” of trying to destroy Truitt's reputation. He is seeking $5 million in damages.

 

Truitt, who described himself as a gay combat veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder, claimed he received a call from Geithner in July to arrange a sexual encounter. This led to an ongoing online discussion between the men. But before they finally met, Truitt said he asked Geithner for help as he was having trouble getting housing because of his sexuality. Geithner allegedly said no.

 

Truitt claimed Geithner was "totally unsympathetic," and this "uncaring and hypocritical attitude toward gay rights" upset him.

 

"Attempting to dissipate his growing angst, on July 15, 2015, Truitt sent a text to Geithner, seeking one more opportunity to express himself and elicit Geithner's help, but Geithner ignored him," the lawsuit said.

 

Angry, Truitt took his story to Gawker and with the site's help outed Geithner (a married man who has never discussed his sexuality publicly). However, the backlash the site received was so intense it was forced to pull the article the very next day.

 

Geithner said the story was a lie and that Truitt was simply trying to extort money from him.

 

"Horribly," Truitt said, "thousands of pages of search results, tweets, blog posts, and other content online reference these false accusations of extortion, identifying what appears to be over 200,000 records."

 

Initially, Truitt's name was not attached to the Gawker story. When it was revealed that Truitt was behind it, people took a hard look at the source. What they found: a somewhat homophobic conspiracy nut.

 

 

Condé Nast's reply: "The claims against Condé Nast are without merit and will be vigorously defended."

 

Here's what we hope: the case gets settled out of court for $5,000 - even though we don't think Truitt has a leg to stand on - and he takes the money to get the help he so obviously needs.

 

Escort files suit against Condé Nast after Gawker story [New York Post]

 

Escort Claims Conde Nast CEO Defamed Him [Court House News]