Deepak Chopra Testifies in Hooker Blackmail Case

APBNews.com, Dec. 16, 1999
By Randy Dotinga

SAN DIEGO (APBnews.com) -- Deepak Chopra, the world-famous alternative medicine advocate and spiritual consultant to the stars, told a jury Wednesday that an emotionally unstable co-worker watched his every move, talked her way onto a private plane carrying him and actor Marlon Brando, and threatened to expose a fictitious tryst with a prostitute if he didn't shell out $1 million.

Also on Wednesday, a judge refused to allow testimony about a possible anti-Chopra conspiracy involving the woman's allegiance to the Transcendental Meditation (TM) movement and its founder, former Beatles' guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

In his first day of testimony in his civil lawsuit against Joyce Weaver, Chopra accused her of stalking him for years. "I didn't know how to get her out of my life," he said. "I just wanted her to go away, so I sued her. I didn't know what else to do."

Weaver, who denies the allegations against her, has filed a sexual harassment suit against Chopra. However, she admits talking to the prostitute, who later retracted her story.

His voice choked with emotion, Chopra testified Wednesday of the day in 1996 when newspapers across the world reprinted a magazine's allegations that he had slept with the hooker. Chopra is married and denies the affair.

"I felt devastated," Chopra said, nearly weeping. "My father, an 81-year-old cardiologist in India, had to go to the hospital after he heard about it. My daughter read about it while flying between New York and Boston. My 73-year-old mother had a worsening of her severe asthma attacks."

The magazine later retracted its charges after Chopra filed a libel suit. Chopra's civil lawsuit against Weaver enters its eighth day today in a downtown San Diego courtroom. When this trial ends, the same jury of 12 will hear Weaver's countersuit alleging sexual harassment.

Chopra has written a series of best-selling books on spiritual and physical health. This year, Time magazine called him a "poet-prophet of alternative medicine" and declared him to be one of the century's 100 top heroes and icons. He is based in the ritzy San Diego seaside neighborhood of La Jolla. In the mid-1990s, he ran the Center for Mind-Body Medicine in a partnership with a local hospital chain.

Weaver, an employee of the hospital chain, helped him with the production of seminars. Over several months, Chopra became concerned about Weaver's mental health and her overbearing interest in him, he testified Wednesday, often looking at Weaver as he spoke from the witness stand.

In one incident, Weaver appeared at the San Diego airport and talked her way onto a private plane that was to fly Chopra, Brando and about a dozen other people to Los Angeles, Chopra said. He added that he was annoyed but too "polite" to kick her off the plane even though she was not invited.

It was not the first time she made Chopra uncomfortable by following him around, he testified. "She had a habit of being not where she was supposed to be and eavesdropping on conversations. I'd suddenly find her behind me or next to me."

In 1995, Weaver approached Chopra in a parking lot and asked for $50,000 to keep a prostitute quiet, he said. The prostitute had earlier called the office of the Mind-Body center to confront Chopra about an alleged encounter in 1991, and several employees -- including Weaver -- had learned of a voice mail message she left behind.

Weaver has admitted taping the message after accessing her boss's voice mail without permission. After approaching him twice and asking for $50,000, Chopra testified, Weaver upped her demand to $1 million and mentioned that a reporter from Esquire magazine was looking into the hooker's allegations.

Chopra said a reporter from Esquire had indeed called him earlier about the hooker; the magazine never wrote a story. A year later, in July 1996, the Weekly Standard magazine printed a cover story about Chopra and the hooker's accusations. The article relied in part on an American Express credit-card receipt from the hooker that had Chopra's name and signature on it.

Weaver has testified that she contacted the reporter who wrote the Weekly Standard story, but only after it appeared. The magazine ran a lengthy correction a year later and settled Chopra's libel suit.

Prostitute was paid, but by whom?

In testimony Wednesday, Chopra said he had allowed an assistant, an Australian named Anthony Nacson, to use his credit cards. Chopra said Nacson later admitted to using the card to pay the hooker. Even so, Chopra said he still doesn't know who used the card to pay the prostitute because he wasn't there. He said he isn't sure it was Nacson.

Chopra's attorneys produced a passport that showed he was in India at the time of the alleged encounter with the prostitute. However, Judge Thomas Murphy refused to allow the attorneys to present hotel bills from New Delhi, India, because there was no proof they were real.

Peter Friesen, Weaver's attorney, said in opening arguments last week that he hopes to show that Nacson may not be guilty of buying the prostitute's services.

In regard to Weaver's sexual harassment claim against him, Chopra denied that he ever caressed Weaver's cheek or touched her in a sexual way. "Ridiculous," he said repeatedly. Friesen declined to comment to APBnews.com about Chopra's testimony. Friesen will cross-examine Chopra today.

Tempers running short

The trial, now nearing the end of its second week, has been marked by tension between Murphy and Chopra's two attorneys. Murphy has chastised the attorneys for dwelling ad nauseum on whether or not Weaver was actually Chopra's employee, an important issue in her sexual harassment suit.

In an unusual bit of courtroom theater outside the jury's presence, Murphy read aloud a juror's note that expressed frustration with the repeated belaboring of the employment issue. Murphy agreed with the juror's unsolicited comment and ordered Chopra's attorneys to not mention the issue again, even in the second trial that will center on the sexual harassment charges.

Murphy also was angered by Chopra's attorneys' attempt to bring forth testimony about a possible conspiracy involving Weaver's ties to the TM movement. Both Weaver and Chopra were part of the movement in the mid-1990s; Chopra later broke off from the group after a rift developed. He testified Wednesday that had become "a bit on the fanatical side."

With the jury out of the courtroom, Chopra attorney Phillip Stillman told Murphy that he wanted to explore the issue of whether Weaver was targeting Chopra because she had sworn allegiance to Maharishi Mahesh

Yogi, a Hindu monk from India who founded the TM movement and was a spiritual adviser to the Beatles and Hollywood celebrities in the 1960s.

A murder allegation

Murphy said testimony about the alleged conspiracy would not be allowed. It is not yet clear how much the jury will hear about another issue -- the mysterious disappearance of Richard Post, a private investigator who dated Weaver and spoke to her about Chopra. According to Chopra's attorneys, Post also investigated Chopra at Weaver's request.

Carla DiMare, an attorney for Chopra, told the jury that Post is "missing." But Stillman, the other attorney for Chopra, told APBnews.com that Post is presumed murdered, a possible victim of a drug transaction gone wrong in Mexico. Stillman said a federal grand jury is investigating Post's apparent murder. That could not immediately be confirmed Wednesday.

Chopra's lawsuit against Weaver is expected to last through next week. After that, the jury will tackle Weaver's countersuit.