More details have emerged in the lawsuit Africa’s richest man, Alike Dangote filed at a Miami-Dade County Court in Florida, U.S. against his former American girlfriend, Autumn Spikes, who exposed a part of his body via a social media post.
According to documents obtained by PremiumTimes, the wealthy businessman used the pseudonym, John Doe, with AD, which stands for the ‘acronym’ for his name, Aliko Dangote, as his alias.
One of the court documents filed by the plaintiff on January 22, is titled, ‘Complaint petition for declaratory judgment complaint for (about) extortion petition for injunctive relief’.
It stated that Mr Dangote’s “business acumen has made him a target for coercion by the defendant”, adding that Ms Spikes demanded “meritless claims of $5 million” in the nature of “palimony to which she is not legally entitled”.
Palimony is an amount of money a law court orders someone to pay regularly to a former partner whom they were living with but were not married to.
“Autumn Spikes has made a demand that the plaintiff pays her five million dollars ($5,000,000.00) as shown in Exhibit 1,” Mr Dangote’s court document states.
Naija News recalls that Miss Spikes on Instagram shared a video of herself and Mr Dangote on a couch draped in an orange blanket fiddling with his mobile phone amidst clearly exposed buttocks.
She tagged @Iambealewis, another lady who had earlier cried out about her relationship with Mr Dangote.
She wrote; “@iambealewis Sis come to miami let’s have fun.”
She also shared photos of Mr. Dangote alighting from a luxury plane in a private hanger, (now deleted) calling herself repeatedly as a ‘ForbesListSugarBabe’ in an apparent reference to her lover’s status amongst an elite list of world’s billionaires
She later claimed her action was aimed at helping Mr. Dangote ”clear his name of the embarrassment caused by another ex-mistress of the businessman, Bea Lewis, who exposed their intimate affairs on social media”.
Mr Dangote who had tried to quickly end his relationship with Ms. Spikes asked his former mistress for a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) about their affair.
But through her representatives, Ms. Spikes demanded $5 million in exchange for the NDA.
The demand was followed by an email by Mr. Dangote’s lawyer, Mr. Fleisher, to Ms. Spikes’ lawyer, Paul Petruzzi, on January 13, asking for “the basis of Ms. Spikes’ demand”.
Responding to Mr Fleisher’s email, Mr Petruzzi described the affair between his client and the billionaire as “an ongoing initimate relationship for nearly the entire past decade since she was pretty young”.
Mr Petruzzi added in the email that ”the relationship was quite involved and pretty interesting” and insisted that Mr Dangote must pay his client the sum of $5 million in exchange for the NDA.
He stated, “For whatever reason, your client broke off the relationship as soon as one of his other ‘conquests’ broke her silence.
“Your client now wants my client to sign an NDA and, through his representatives, offered her money to do so.
“While I appreciate your client’s desire to continue to exercise his control over mine, she will only agree to the NDA proposed by your client in exchange for the lump sum of 5 million dollars.”
Mr Dangote filed the email exchange as Exhibit 1 in his suit.
The wealthy man noted in his suit that Ms Spikes had in the past requested financial assistance from him to start up a business.
He said he agreed to grant her the assistance on the condition that it would remain confidential.
His court document read in part, “Autumn Spikes demanded from the plaintiff assistance as an entrepreneur in a start-up business when there was no loan commitment, nor oral or written promise.
“The plaintiff once announced an oral willingness to provide entrepreneurial assistance to Autumn Spikes on the condition that it be confidential and private.”
He said he later started seeing social media posts and planned media talk shows “done to expose him and make his life miserable if he fails to comply with the demand for $5,000,000.”
“John Doe’s generosity toward Autumn Spikes, if any, has been breached by Autumn Spikes’ exposure and solicitations to talk show media if he fails to pay her meritless demands,” he added.
Dangote said his “generosity toward Autumn Spikes, if any, has been breached by Autumn Spikes’ exposure and solicitations to media talk shows if he fails to pay her meritless demands.”
He maintained that ”he had the right to stop being generous to her and demand a refund of the funds he had given her to assist her business in the past”.
Aliko Dangote said she also threatened to take the matter to social media, including, Facebook and Instagram.
He stated, “Autumn Spikes continues illegal demands for a plaintiff to pay her what he does not owe her, under threat he will be a victim of nasty and/or untrue publicity in order to induce payment of support, in the form of alimony, and as if she was married to the plaintiff.
“Defendant has threatened communications on social media, Facebook, Instagram, and otherwise.
“John Doe has a right to terminate his generosity and to obtain from Autumn Spikes a refund of the monies he had given her to assist her in starting up a business.”
The business mogul is asking the court to grant ”a non-jury trial, damages, an award of refund of all of those monies she claims plaintiff paid her, court costs and such remedies as available under the law”.
He also asked the court to restrain the defendant from demanding “payment in exchange for non-disclosure of their relationship”.