The unproven claims come in response to a sexual abuse lawsuit initiated by seven aspiring ballerinas in 2021 against Mitchell Taylor Button, a dance teacher, and his wife Dusty Button, once a principal member of The Boston Ballet. Earlier this month, Taylor Button and his wife filed a third-party counterclaim in US District Court in Nevada, admitting to a consensual “sexual relationship” with Sage Humphries, the lead plaintiff in the suit. The lawsuit says their “loving and supportive” relationship began in 2017, when Humphries was 18, but claims she had engaged in three previous sexual relationships as an underage teenager with much older men, including Katz. The third-party claim seeks to hold those men responsible for any damages, with the filing saying that if there is a price to be paid, “it should be paid by those who actually engaged in wrongful acts with her.” An attorney representing Katz denied the allegations.
Screenshots of supposed texts
The lawsuit makes a number of baseless allegations about Katz, Humphries and her family. “Humphries was literally a child prostitute to a billionaire,” the claim says, “and her mother helped her launder the money she was paid and traffic it to Katz.” Among the exhibits attached to the filing are screenshots of texts allegedly exchanged between Humphries and Katz, as well as an iPhone contact in the billionaire’s name, listing a number with a 780 area code, usually associated with the Edmonton area . A text exchange, allegedly between Katz and teenage ballerina Sage Humphries, was filed as part of a US civil lawsuit. (US District Court, Nevada) “If my children send you money, will you spend it/keep it for yourself?” Katz reportedly wrote. “And just between us? Even though you are wise beyond your years, given our age, it would be wrong.” “Yeah..Between us,” Humphreys reportedly replies. “OK will have one of my guys email. Will send you 50k,” reads the message attributed to Katz. The court reports that Katz was 53 at the time, while the dancer was 17.
“Distraction and shaking”
Robert Klieger, the lawyer representing Katz, told CBC News that his client never had a sexual relationship with Humphries. But the pair met on two occasions in the spring of 2016 over a project the 17-year-old was pitching at Katz’s film company, Silver icons. “One of Daryl’s friends put him in touch with Sage because Sage was working with some production partners to shop a movie that they had created, basically, that was based in the world of ballet,” Kliger said. Kliger said he was unable to verify the authenticity of the texts in the court filing, but confirmed that the Edmonton Oilers owner arranged for $75,000 to be sent to Humphries as part of their business dealings. “Ultimately they decided to pass the project. But during the time period that the project was under review, they asked for some help to keep the project funded to continue. And that’s the $75,000 that’s at issue,” Kliger said. . The project, a remake of an Australian independent film is called Dealing with Romeoremains in progress, according to an IMDB listing. A March 2016 self-portrait of ballerina Sage Humphries from her Instagram account. He was 17 at the time and was casting Canadian billionaire Darryl Katz in a Hollywood film. (Sage Humphries/Instagram) Klieger said Katz will vigorously defend his reputation against the lawsuit’s “baseless and obscene” allegations. “It’s designed to distract and shake,” he said.
A “pointless sideshow”
The third-party action doesn’t explain how or when the screenshots were taken, but the time and battery levels shown suggest they were accessed multiple times. The original civil suit filed by Humphries says she handed over the iPhone and passwords to Taylor Button to help her build a social media following. To date, no responses to the third-party proposal have been filed. In a statement to CBC News, the lawyer representing Humphries and the other dancers dismissed the action as a “pointless sideshow.” “As is typical of abusers facing serious litigation, the Buttons have filed counterclaims that distract and distort the truth and weaponize the serious allegations of abuse that have been brought against them,” wrote Sigrid McCawley, managing director of Boies Schiller LLP . “Their counterclaims falsely implicate others and are a baseless attempt to portray the women they abused as liars.” Marc Randazza, the Las Vegas attorney representing Taylor Button and his wife, declined to comment on the filing. “We are not testing this case in the press,” he wrote in an email. Randazza describes himself as a “First Amendment lawyer,” and his website highlights a number of areas of expertise, including civil rights, defamation, the adult entertainment business and “sexual expression protection.” It has attracted media attention for some of his controversial clients, including Alex Jones, the Infowars conspiracy theorist, and Andrew Anglin, publisher of the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website. He faced disciplinary action from the Florida, California and Nevada State Bar Associations
Previous allegations of having sex with money
This is not the first time Katz has been the subject of allegations of a sexual relationship. In 2017, RJ Cipriani, a professional gambler, filed a defamation lawsuit against GF Bunting+Co, a PR crisis management firm that was then representing Katz. The lawsuit alleged that Katz proposed to Cipriani’s wife, model and actress Greice Santo, during a photo shoot in Hawaii, offering her $20,000 a day for sex. Katz allegedly sent Santo a total of $35,000 — money she later donated to charity after she rejected the deal. At the time, a representative for Katz denied the claims, calling them “false, malicious and completely unfounded.” Asked about the 2017 case, Katz’s lawyer, Robert Kliger, said there was “nothing to it,” offering to put CBC News in touch with Cipriani. “There’s no ongoing animosity or anything between them,” Kliger said. “But I can’t go into the details of exactly how they solved it.”
