It’s another fall for ice queen Oksana Baiul.
The Olympic figure-skating champion, who lost a $45 million lawsuit against NBC and a skating promoter, must now undergo further embarrassment by coughing up those defendants’ legal fees.
Manhattan federal Judge Katherine Forrest on Monday ordered Baiul to pay $35,000 to $45,000 in legal fees, three months after she tossed the 1994 Winter Olympics star’s suits against NBC and promoter Stephen Disson, alleging they falsely used her image in ads to promote two televised shows in 2011 and 2012 after she declined to perform.
“Both the meritless nature of Baiul’s claims coupled with the evidence of ulterior and improper motives is more than enough” to warrant the payment, the judge wrote.
Though the fees are chump change for the Russian star, the ruling adds another embarrassment to her litigious history.
In May, the same judge tossed a $400 million lawsuit by Baiul against her former agents, calling her claims “frivolous and, frankly, bizarre.”
That suit claimed agents from William Morris Entertainment stole more than $57 million in earnings from Baiul through a “criminal enterprise” that took advantage of the ice queen by signing her in 1994 when she was a 16-year-old minor and could not understand English.