She’s already been called a drug dealer and an ex-con — but “Real Housewives of New Jersey” star Danielle Staub still cared enough about what little is left of her reputation to rush to court yesterday to block a humiliating sex tape.
The 46-year-old reality-show cougar with a checkered past got a bit of good news when a judge issued an order temporarily preventing her 27-year-old ex from selling the steamy video, which she insists he made without her knowledge.
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The brief hearing in Passaic County Court was one last off-camera scene in a wild season for the “Housewives” franchise. The final show last week set a franchise ratings record of 5 million viewers who tuned in to see the women fight over the revelations in Staub’s ugly past.
Staub was revealed to have lived a life of crime in the 1980s under her real name, Beverly Ann Merrill. Another ex-husband, who was a government stool pigeon, told some lurid tales of their past in an out-of-print 1995 book about his life, “Cop Without A Badge.”
The most serious allegation was that she got mixed up in a drug/kidnapping plot. The other housewives confronted her about it on the show, and she tried to play it off as a minor incident.
But this week, TheSmokingGun Web site got hold of the real documents of her case, and found out that she was closely mixed up in a drug deal gone bad. She reportedly served as a courier for a reputed Colombian drug cartel associate, Daniel Aguilar, in 1986. She was supposed to deliver a $24,000 kilo of coke to a buyer, according to the records, but was robbed by thugs.
She and Aguilar allegedly plotted to kidnap the customer, thinking he was in on the theft. They hoped to extort money out of the young druggie’s father, the Florida federal court papers said. She was eventually busted and testified against Aguilar, getting a sentence of five months. He got 15 years.
In an embarrassing twist for Staub, the papers said that she met Aguilar while she worked for an escort service, according to TheSmokingGun.
The details from the court papers came after another embarrassment for Staub last week, when ex-boyfriend Steve Zalewski bragged to Star magazine that he had a sex tape with her in it. He threatened to sell it to the highest bidder.
Yesterday, Staub refused to comment. But her attorney said that she knew nothing of the existence of any sex video.
Zalewski was served with papers, but didn’t show up for the early-afternoon hearing, prompting the judge to put a temporary hold on a release of the tape at least until July 21.