Borat 'Jews' Frat Boys Out Of Their Money
In the weeks following the release of the Borat movie a number of lawsuits sprung up against Sacha Baron Cohen by people who claimed to have been taken advantage of. Most notable among these were the 2 frat boys who got drunk with Borat and spewed racist, anti-semitic and sexist remarks, and the villagers from Romania who played the Kazaks in Borat's home village.
The frat boys were 3 members of the Chi Psi fraternity at the University of South Carolina. In the movie, they got drunk with Borat and said among other things, that they wished they could go back to having slaves and that minorities control America. After the movie came out, two of them decided to sue (although the third one, David Corcoran, apparently just thought the situation was funny). The lawsuit claimed that the production crew got the guys drunk and told them the movie would not be shown in America.
The villagers were largely Gypsies from the village of Glod, Romania. They claimed that they were humiliated in the movie and they were only paid $4 for the day, compared to the millions made off of the movie. (Those involved with the movie dispute this and claim that in fact Cohen gave $10,000 to the village to buy computers.) The villagers brought a lawsuit and hired Ed Fagan as their lawyer, who interestingly enough is famous for his lawsuits to regain money for Holocaust victims from Swiss banks and German and Austrian companies.
Both lawsuits have now been dismissed. The lawsuit by the frat boys was dismissed based on California's anti-SLAPP law. (SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, a strategy of suing people to intimidate them into being quiet in order to avoid the legal costs.) Lawyers for Cohen argued that the film dealt with important issues such as racism, sexism and anti-semitism and that this lawsuit was intending to end this debate. Cohen won, which according to the law will require the plaintiffs to repay Cohen for the legal costs.
The lawsuit by the Romanian villagers was thrown out by a US District judge in Manhattan, who claimed the suit was too vague.
A number of other lawsuits against Cohen are still ongoing. This includes one recently initiated suit by a woman who met Cohen on a youth trip to Israel. She claims he has defamed her by saying in an interview with Gore Vidal (while playing Ali G): "Me used to go out with this b**** called Heddi Cundle," and "once me got her pregnant me said all right, laters, that is it". She said in reality the two never dated.