Judge halts release of Verne Troyer sex tape2 days ago
LOS ANGELES (AP) — A 25-second snippet of video showing Verne Troyer and a former girlfriend having sex that was available online over the past couple of days is all the world will see of the tape — for now.
A federal judge on Friday granted a temporary restraining order requested by Troyer's attorneys that prevents pron distributors from taking orders for the full-length video, and prevents TMZ from broadcasting any more clips.
The celebrity Web site posted the short segment on its site on Wednesday; Troyer sued the site and pron distributors on Thursday for $20 million in damages.
U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez wrote that Troyer's motion "demonstrated that he will suffer irreparable harm to his reputation" if the tape is distributed. It barred further broadcasting of the tape, which Troyer's attorney, Tracy Rane, interpreted as meaning that TMZ has to remove the video from its site.
TMZ removed the snippet of the tape by late Friday afternoon, instead redirecting Web viewers to its homepage. Another post describing the lawsuit remained active Friday.
