DALLAS – Reality TV star Camille Grammer won a real-life verdict Wednesday against the ex-boyfriend she says assaulted her in 2013.
A federal jury ruled in a civil case that former corporate lawyer Dimitri Charalambopoulos had, in fact, attacked her in Houston at the Hotel ZaZa, and that she had not defamed him by reporting that he had.
In addition, the five-woman, three-man jury also ruled that Charalambopoulos defamed Grammer, the ex-wife of actor Kelsey Grammer, when he alleged in an interview on Access Hollywood a month after the incident that she had fabricated the claim.
Although Grammer had not requested damages, the jury awarded Ms. Grammer $1,000 for actual damages, and – because jurors found Charalambopoulos had acted with both malice and gross negligence – awarded her $35,000 – a figure close to the roughly $31,000 that Grammer has spent on therapy since the incident.
In addition, the jury awarded $25 to Grammer for the injury to her reputation sustained by Charalambopoulos’ defamatory statements. The charge instructed jurors to answer this question with a nominal amount, “such as $1.”
Grammer declined to comment, but after Judge Karen Gren Scholar read the verdict form, each lawyer on her legal team gave her a hug. Grammer exited the courtroom in tears with her husband, Los Angeles corporate real estate lawyer David Meyer, whom she wed in October 2018 in Hawaii.
Meyer was in the courtroom with Grammer every day of the trial. They often held hands as they would leave or enter the courtroom together from breaks. She let out a sigh of relief as she began processing the fact that the five-year legal battle had ended.
The verdict emerged from a legal action first filed by Charalambopoulos against Grammer alleging that she had fabricated the assault after they broke up over a late-night text from a childhood friend. When the case was declined by a Houston grand jury, Charalambopoulos sued her for defamation and malicious prosecution. She, in turn, sued him for claiming that she fabricated the incident.
Charalambopoulos sought up to $25 million in the jury trial, explained as compensation for the 10-year maximum he could have spent in prison had the criminal prosecution had a different outcome ($1 million per year, his lawyers told jurors). His lawyers also told jurors they should consider awarding roughly $5 million – $25 per follower of Ms. Grammer’ s Twitter account – on two other claims, since the assault allegations were spread on Grammer’s widely-followed social media.
From its beginning, the case was complicated – not just by the usual conflict of memories and emotions – but also by the insinuations of celebrity self-promotion and the refractions of social media.
In closing arguments, attorney Guy Fisher, who represents Charalambopoulos, summed up his efforts to portray her injuries as little more than a form of self-promotion that resulted in real injury to her ex.
“In real life, there’s no next episode. What happens, happens in real time, and someone’s reputation can be damaged,” Fisher told jurors Tuesday afternoon. “In reality TV there’s always a next episode. Any publicity is good publicity. The more drama, the better.”
But for Richard Rohan – lead lawyer for “Team Camille” (as the plaintiffs called them, derisively) – the issue wasn’t money or celebrity or reality TV. It’s whether a drunken Dimitri Charalambopoulos assaulted Grammer after an argument over a late-night text.
“We didn’t bring this lawsuit to raid his bank account,” Rohan, a partner at Carrington Coleman, said to the jurors. “I leave it to your [judgment] for what she endured.”
And on Wednesday the jury said it believed the accusation by Ms. Grammer, once a regular on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
The Incident
In 2013, Grammer and Charalambopoulos were staying in a room together at Hotel ZaZa in Houston where Grammer was recovering from surgery related to her treatment for endometrial cancer at MD Anderson.
Grammer has alleged that a late-night argument turned into a full-fledged assault when Charalambopoulos grabbed her wrists, pulled her hair, slammed her head into the hotel bed and covered her mouth and nose when she attempted to call for help. Charalambopoulos fled the hotel, she said, after breaking her cell phone and unplugging the hotel room phones.
Charalambopoulos, a former lawyer who practiced bankruptcy and corporate law in Dallas, claims the argument was the result of an innocuous text from a childhood friend –a friend who helped Grammer get into MD Anderson.
He claimed Grammer assaulted him after she accused him of cheating, and that he left the hotel assuming that the worst thing that had happened was an end to their relationship. The accusation of assault, he said, was a lie created for the benefit of police, famous friends, the tabloid press and her 198,000 followers on Twitter.
On Tuesday, Fisher sought to leverage Grammer’s celebrity persona against her. Testimony by friends and family that she had been hysterical after the incident was not supported by evidence, he said.
For instance, a night clerk at Hotel ZaZa testified that Grammer was not crying when she came down to the lobby to report the alleged assault. The clerk’s call reporting the incident, routinely recorded by police, includes a brief conversation with Grammer, who refused medical assistance saying, “he just scraped my arm.”
“It sounded like she was ordering a pizza,” Fisher said. “She’s a reality TV star, she can turn it on and off anytime she wants.”
Moreover, multiple witnesses – including Grammer’s doctor at MD Anderson, the Houston police officer who took the 9-11 call and the hotel clerk – saw none of the facial bruising that Grammer claimed.
But Rohan said the hotel clerk, Christina Royster, did testify that she saw Grammer crying: first, when she was met by her mother and her assistant in the lobby; then later, when Royster brought a new key to Grammer’s room in case Charalambopoulos returned.
What’s more, Rohan pointed out, lawyers for “Team Dimitri” had tried to diminish Royster’s testimony by revealing that the clerk had, in the past, also been a victim of assault.
Team Dimitri’s assumption, Rohan said, was just because someone has been assaulted, “they can’t be truthful.”
Rohan also cut into the plaintiff’s argument about the lack of visible bruising on Grammer’s face as implying that she “wasn’t injured bad enough,” therefore she must not have been assaulted.
Rohan played the video of another argument between Grammer and Charalambopoulos, one that Grammer recorded on her phone in Las Vegas. In it, Charalambopoulos appears drunk and angry at Grammer.
“As you can see in the video, he is certainly capable of being belligerent, loud and angry,” Rohan said.
Rohan played a brief clip of a previous deposition of Charalambopoulos in which he slips in an answer, saying, “When I – she – hit me…”
“For one brief moment, he failed to stick to his story and said ‘When I hit,’ ” Rohan told the jurors.
Although Charalambopoulos produced two polygraph tests to support his story, Rohan dismissed them as easily manipulated. And he focused on changes in the stories told by Charalambopoulos over time. Charalambopoulos never mentioned in the Access Hollywood video that Grammer hit him.
“Because it never happened,” Rohan said.
Following those arguments, once the jury left for deliberations, presiding U.S. District Judge Karen Gren Scholer sought to relieve the bitterness of the arguments. Descending from the bench, she walked to the attorneys’ tables, then shook hands with each lawyer and their clients.
“No matter what happens, I wish the best for you,” she said to Grammer, “and for you as well, Mr. Charalambopoulos,” she said as she turned to Grammer’s courtroom opponent.
In addition to Rohan, Grammer’s legal team included Carrington Coleman associate Thomas Conner, as well as Los Angeles entertainment litigator Ashley Yeargan of Russ August & Kabat. Carrington Coleman partner Kelli Hinson, who is also the firm’s general counsel, handled the jury charge.
Jason Bloom of Bloom Strategic Consulting served as Grammer’s jury consultant.
“This was a great jury and the win was a true team effort,” Bloom, who is based in Dallas, told The Texas Lawbook. “Camille and her lawyers worked hard to make sure this jury got it right. We are very excited about the outcome.”
In addition to Fisher, Charalambopoulos’ trial team included Fisher’s brother, Joe Fisher. Both practice at Provost Umphrey in Beaumont. Houston appellate lawyer Andrew Bender handled the jury charge.