Reply #5: Firm paid Schwarzenegger accuser for silence-report (Reuters)

[Up2Late]

(So, when do you folks in California get to set him packing anyway?)

Firm paid Schwarzenegger accuser for silence-report

Fri Aug 12, 2005 08:30 PM ET

By Adam Tanner

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The publisher of the "National Enquirer" tabloid paid a woman who had once described an extramarital affair with Arnold Schwarzenegger $20,000 to sign a confidentiality agreement about their relationship, the Los Angeles Times reported on Friday. A friend of the woman, named by the newspaper as Gigi Goyette, 46, told Reuters on Friday she also was paid $1,000 by the tabloid to keep confidential what she knew, in reported deals that came just days after Schwarzenegger announced his candidacy for California governor in 2003.

"I kind of felt that they just wanted to not hear more about Arnold and his women or his flirtations," the friend, Judy Mora, said. At the time of the confidentiality agreement, American Media Inc., owner of the National Enquirer, was negotiating to make Schwarzenegger executive editor of two fitness magazines that had helped make him the world's most famous bodybuilder, according to the Los Angeles Times.

No information has come to light suggesting that Schwarzenegger knew American Media paid the two women. The governor's press office declined to comment on Friday, but referred to a spokesman's remarks to the Los Angeles Times saying he believed the governor did not know about the reported deals.

American Media spokesman Stuart Zakim declined to comment on the report. Goyette did not return a call for comment. The report of the American Media deal with the women comes at a time the Republican governor has struggled to regain his political footing with his poll ratings at new lows. The story risks distracting voter attention from a special election that Schwarzenegger has called for November and provided new ammunition for his political opponents.

<http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=9364675&src=rss/topNews>
(more and page 2 at link above)