How Much Does It Cost To Be JT LeRoy?

Answer: $466,500. A Manhattan federal judge on Tuesday ordered Laura Albert, creator of the sexually ambiguous literary impostor, to pay $350,000 in legal fees to the New York film company that in June won a judgment against her for fraud.

Albert already owed $116,500 to Antidote International Films after a jury found that she had deceived the company by failing to reveal LeRoy’s true/fake identity when signing over the movie rights to her novel Sarah in 2003. As reported by SF Weekly, Jeffrey Levy-Hinte, Antidote’s president, followed up his courtroom victory with a demand for more than $1 million in attorney fees from Albert, a San Francisco resident.

The judge gave him one-third of what he sought, prompting Levy-Hinte’s lawyer to proclaim his client satisfied, according to The New York Times. “Neither Jeff nor I want to ruin Laura Albert,” attorney Gregory Curtner told the paper. “We just want her to behave with a little more integrity.”

No doubt posing for Playboy would help with that and her legal bills. – Martin Kuz