EXCLUSIVE: Model Liskula Cohen Wins Court Battle with Google to Learn Blogger's Identity
Liskula Cohen said hateful blog posts by acquaintance damaged her career.
Aug. 19, 2009— -- She had graced the cover of Vogue and found success as a model. But Liskula Cohen's latest achievement came in the courtroom.
Horrified by the hateful words of an anonymous blogger, Cohen took Google to court in hopes of forcing the company to reveal the writer's identity -- and won.
"Why should anybody let it go? If somebody attacks somebody on the street, you're not going to let it go … why should I just ignore it?" Cohen told "Good Morning America" exclusively today. "I couldn't find one reason to ignore it."
Google initially refused to unmask the unidentified writer, who Cohen, 36, claimed defamed her by posting words like "skanky," "ho", and "whoring" below her photographs. The IP address turned over by Google revealed that the blogger was an acquaintance of Cohen's.
Cohen said it was a woman she hadn't seen in about a year, but who was a regular fixture at dinners and parties, but she was not, as Cohen had feared, someone who was close to her.
"Thank God it was her… she's an irrelevant person in my life," Cohen said. "She's just somebody that, whenever I would go out to a restaurant, to a party in New York City … she was just that girl that was always there."
In August 2008, the unnamed blogger wrote five different posts entitled "Skanks of NYC" on the Google-owned website Blogger.com.
There were two photographs posted on the blog that show Cohen and an unidentified man in sexually suggestive positions. The captions below described her as the "Skankiest in NYC" and a "psychotic, lying, whoring ... skank."
One post read "desperation seeps from her soul, if she even has one."
The blog was eventually taken down even though Google continued to refuse Cohen the IP address until the court ruled in her favor.
Cohen, who described herself as a "serial monogamist" and has a "zero tolerance drug policy," said the words were defamatory and harmful to her career. Prospective clients would question her about the blog and what she was doing in the photos, she says.
"Finding new clients this year has not been a walk in the park," she said. "I've worked very long in this industry."
Cohen and her lawyer, Steven Wagner, said they are now planning a defamation suit against the blogger.
"We're not in it to make money," Wagner told "Good Morning America." "We're in it because something was done that was wrong."
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