Accountant Sues The Hollywood Reporter

The lawsuit, filed Nov. 6 by Nicole Basile in U.S. District Court, in Chicago claims defamation and false light. It also names journalists Gregg Kilday and Tatiana Siegel, according to Variety. Basile claims her career and reputation were ruined by the story, “Sony Hack: Studio Security Points to Inside Job,” published on THR’s website about Dec. 3 and in the magazine’s Dec. 12 issue. She seeks $1.4 million in damages, the amount she estimates she’s lost in earnings. The suit quotes an excerpt from the THR story that alleges Basile stole the files.

“Now the question of who is behind the attack has become a chilling Hollywood whodunit. While the hackers have identified themselves only as Guardians of Peace, emails pointing journalists to allegedly stolen files posted on a site called Pastebin came from a sender named ‘Nicole Basile.’ A woman by that name is credited on IMDb as an accountant on the studio’s 2012 hit film ‘The Amazing Spider-Man,’ and her LinkedIn page says she worked at Sony for one year in 2011.

Basile couldn’t be reached for comment and the studio declined to confirm if she works or has worked there,” Variety said. Basile further says the article “falsely and damningly” implied that she was the only person under whose name the hackers were sending emails, when journalists were getting emails under other aliases including THR journalist Lesley Goldberg and author Michael Lewis. She claims in her lawsuit that THR singled her out and “intentionally lied to readers.” The complaint also pointed out that as a freelance accountant she was employed by a production company that worked on “The Amazing Spider-Man,” but not for Sony and did not say that on her LinkedIn account.

“This is no semantic quibble,” her lawsuit states. “The article was intentionally crafted to point the finger at Ms. Basile as the insider responsible for the attack.”

She also claims that no “reasonable efforts” were made to contact her before the article was published, Variety reported. A spokeswoman for Prometheus Global Media that they do not comment on litigation.