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December 3, 2009

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Berosini ordered to pay legal fees in PETA lawuit

Jace Radke

Tuesday, Nov. 23, 2004 | 8:51 a.m.

Former Las Vegas performer Bobby Berosini has been ordered to pay more than $250,000 in legal fees incurred by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

U.S. Magistrate Lawrence Leavitt ordered Berosini, who performed with orangutans in the "Lido de Paris" show at the Stardust through the late 1980s, to pay $256,087.07 in legal fees to PETA's attorneys.

PETA maintained that Berosini long delayed paying the organization a $350,000 judgement. PETA won the the judgment after Berosini filed a defamation lawsuit against the organization. It stemmed from PETA secretly videotaping Berosini beating one of his orangutans at the Stardust in 1989.

Berosini eventually paid the initial judgment but had not paid PETA legal fees, PETA officials said.

Berosini claimed in his 1990 defamation lawsuit that PETA members doctored and distributed the videotape of him striking one of his primates backstage. Berosini won a $4.2 million jury award in the defamation case in District Court, but the Nevada Supreme Court overturned the jury award in 1994, clearing the way for PETA to ask for attorneys fees.

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