'Sarah' author loses fraud lawsuit

NEW YORK, June 23 (UPI) -- A New York jury has ordered author Laura Albert to pay a film company $116,500 in a fraud lawsuit over her best-selling book "Sarah."

Albert had been taken to court after it was learned she had created the supposed teenage writer "JT LeRoy" and his story was a hoax. Antidote International Films had paid $45,000 for the rights to the book to a company formed by Albert rather than to LeRoy.

LeRoy had been a literary star for a brief period until it was learned that Albert was the true author of "Sarah," and that LeRoy had been played in public by a female acquaintance.

The New York Post said Albert had argued that "Sarah" had been her way of coping with her own abusive and tumultuous childhood.