Heather Mills in a Tabloid Sting?

Former Mrs. Paul McCartney claims Murdoch's News Corp. set her up.

ByABC News

April 3, 2009, 1:30 PM

April 6, 2009 -- Heather Mills, ex-wife of Paul McCartney, says a reporter set up a fake charity to trick her into dishing dirt on her marriage to the ex-Beatles superstar and their infamous divorce.Mills' accusations are the latest battle in a long-running war between the wealthy ex-model and the British tabloid media, including News Corp., the media empire owned by billionaire Rupert Murdoch, where Mills believes the alleged sting originated.

Mills says that in January her agent was approached by a Dr. Erika Taylor, claiming to be with an American-based charity called Marital Understanding. 'Dr. Taylor' was inviting Mills to speak at their black-tie gala in Los Angeles for a fee of $60,000, which would have been donated to the charity Mines Advisory Group.

But Mills and her agent grew skeptical when they saw the alleged organization's very amateurish website – not to mention the URL – which ended in .com, not .org as most legitimate non-profit organizations do.

In fact, there is no such charity called Marital Understanding, according to the California Secretary of State's office. No non-profit organization called Marital Understanding has filed a 990 form in California. The California Secretary of State's office confirmed that no charity by that name is in their database. The website, maritalunderstanding.com, has since been taken down.

Now quite skeptical Mills and her agent did some further research and learned the website had been established just two days before it was sent to her.

It was then that they decided to examine the emails from the alleged charity. The IP address, they say, eventually traced back to News Corporation, which runs numerous British papers including the tabloids The Sun and The News of the World. News Corporation also runs The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal in the U.S.

Mills said it was then that she came to the belief that the 'invitation' was actually made by a reporter from News Corp. in an attempt to get her to divulge details about her marriage and divorce.