A RICO case filed in New York named Dr. Emmanuel Hostin, Sunny Hostin's husband, as one of the defendants. American Transit Insurance Company (ATIC) accused Hostin and 180 other defendants of committing federal insurance fraud. However, Emmanuel and Sunny Hostin's lawyers have served a formal notice to the insurance company, seeking $5 million for "defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress."
via: Page Six
The couple hired legal eagle Mark Geragos last week we reported, and now Hostin is speaking out against American Transit, the insurance company, alleging the company has “filed a frivolous lawsuit against my husband” as a “desperate attempt to avoid paying for medical and surgical procedures for people it insures who were in pain,” she said in an exclusive statement to Page Six on Monday morning.
On Sunday, Geragos sent a letter to American Transit’s lawyers, threating to countersue for $5 million if the company did not withdraw its case and issue an apology.
Sunny — who is also an attorney — said in her statement that the $5 million figure is “an amount that is likely to increase as the reputational damage that American Transit has intentionally caused is difficult to quantify at this time.”
The ABC host also accused the insurer of using her celebrity status on the daytime talk show to “start a disgusting media smear campaign against my husband, which included me and our children.”
“American Transit is harassing me and my family in a frantic attempt to not pay its bills. Our family will not be intimidated and harassed. We remain unbowed,” she said in the statement.
The Bronx native, 56, accused the insurance company of “engaging in despicable tactics like harassing doctors,” she wrote.
Hostin also mentioned a lawsuit in her statement filed by Uber Technologies against American Transit — as well as an alleged previous investigation by New York State — claiming the company is “on the verge of bankruptcy."
She concluded her statement by writing: “Let me be clear, where I come from, American Transit will receive a PHD from FAFO University,” (as in, “f–k around and find out”).
Sunny’s husband is one of 200 doctors named in American Transit’s lawsuit alleging that the doc “knowingly provided fraudulent medical and other healthcare services including arthroscopic surgeries.”
His lawyer, Daniel Thwaites, previously blasted the allegations as a “blanket, scattershot, meritless lawsuit by a near-bankrupt insurance carrier.”
On Sunday, a lawyer representing American Transit — William Natbony of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft — told Page Six in response, “American Transit commenced its lawsuit as part of its statutory responsibility to fight no-fault fraud which is rampant in New York. The allegations of the Complaint speak for themselves. With respect to any allegations by any defendant as to improper conduct by American Transit or its counsel, such assertions are emphatically denied as without basis.”
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