Court papers: Plaintiff born male

NEW YORK, March 26 (UPI) -- A New York billionaire accused in a lawsuit of taking advantage of an underage model claims the girl was not born female and was 18 when they talked.

Lawyers for Jeffrey Epstein said in papers filed in the New York Supreme Court that Ava Cordero, who claims in her suit that Epstein pressured her into a sexual relationship when she was underage, was born Maximillian Cordero in 1983, making her 18-years-old at the time of phone calls that she claims support her case, the New York Post reported Wednesday.

Cordero's suit "is entirely untenable because the factual predicate for the actions -- that Cordero was under 17 at the time of the alleged events -- cannot be true," the court papers said. "Cordero was already 18 at the time of the phone calls."

Sources close to Cordero confirmed that she was born male, but has lived as a woman and taken hormone treatments since her early teens, the Post said.