Here’s hoping Gretchen Rossi‘s pockets are deeper than the plots on The Real Housewives of Orange County.
The litigious homemaker was ordered today to fork over another $40,799 in legal fees for the onetime beau she tried to sue for defamation but is now just suing for assault, battery and other alleged offenses.
And it could have been worse.
Onetime beau Jay Photoglou had asked for $85,000 in attorney fees, but the judge only awarded him half because the lawsuit against him is ongoing. But Photoglou’s camp is calling it a win.
“We just keep getting victories, and we look to get more of them if she makes the decision to keep going with this case,”
his attorney, Bryan J. Freedman, exclusively told E! News.
“We’re pleased. They tried to challenge the amount, they were unsuccessful, and the judge made the right ruling. And I have no doubt she’ll appeal it, and we look forward to her losing that also and paying more attorney’s fees for yet another poor decision.”
Bryan Freedman
Rossi was already forced to pay upward of $22,000 toward Photoglau’s legal coffer last year after she went after him in court for claiming that the two of them were carrying on while she was engaged to Jeff Beitzel, who died of cancer in 2008.
The judge threw out the defamation-libel-slander portion of Rossi’s case in October, but allowed her to move forward with claims of assault, battery, stalking, breach of contract, conversion, intentional emotional distress, intentional interference with contractual relations and intentional interference with prospective economic relations.
In which case, it sounds like her lawyers are working plenty of billable hours, too.
Rossi’s attorney, Gregory Brown, has not yet returned a call for comment.
