Tom Cruise Wins Wiretapping Lawsuit, Clears Name

Hollywood A-lister Tom Cruise scored a major legal victory today as a judge dismissed a wiretapping lawsuit that was filed against him.

Former Bold magazine editor Michael Davis Sapir filed the suit against the movie star claiming that Cruise and his attorney Bert Fields hired a private investigator by the name of Anthony Pellicano to wiretap him.

However, during the hearing at the Central Civil West courtroom in LA, Judge Elihu M. Berle confirmed that the statute of limitations had expired and the claim was therefore no longer valid.

The case, which is more than a decade old, began in 2001 when Sapir offered half a million dollars to anyone who could provide him with video evidence proving that Tom Cruise was homosexual.

Soon after Sapir released a press statement claiming that he possessed video footage to confirm that Cruise was gay. In response, Cruise filed a defamation lawsuit for $100 million against the magazine editor. The case was settled in November 2001 for an undisclosed amount, and Sapir offered a full retraction and an admission that Cruise was not in the video.

However, later Sapir also claimed he was investigated by Pellicano after he was hired by Cruise and Fields. Sapir claimed that his phone had been wiretapped by the investigator. 

However, Sapir did not officially file any legal action against Cruise and Fields until the end of 2009, after the statute of limitations under California law expired.

Attorneys for Cruise and Fields have also argued that they did not hire Pellicano to investigate Sapir at all, and that there was also no evidence of any wiretapping.