Presidential hopeful and king of “klass,” Donald Trump, could be deposed in a lawsuit he filed against celebrity chef and LLNYC-cover-star Geoffrey Zakarian.
For almost a year, Zakarian has been embroiled in a legal battle with Trump, after pulling out of plans to bring a restaurant to the Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C., at the renovated Old Post Office.
Zakarian cited his opposition to Trump’s racist comments on Mexican immigrants as the reason for backing out of the project.
“The recent statements surrounding Mexican immigrants… do not in any way align with my personal core values,” Zakarian said in a statement at the time. “In light of this, I am unable to move forward with” the restaurant.
Trump responded with a lawsuit against the Food Network star. He filed a similar suit against chef José Andrés, who left the project for the same reason.
Trump’s lawyers called the planned deposition “an effort to ‘harass’ Trump,” and, “asked a judge in January to block the deposition, saying [Zakarian] still had other options to get the information he wanted,” the National Law Journal reports.
Superior Court Judge Brian Holeman said last week that Trump’s testimony was “necessary” and he had “personal knowledge of events and information relevant and material to the claims,” according to the New York Post.
But the fight with Trump doesn’t seem to be holding Zakarian back. The Lamb’s Club partner recently opened a new bistro in Greenwich, Conn., and is planning restaurant and bar at the Montage Beverly Hills this June.