Ashley Madison has filed a countersuit against the female employee who sued the affairs site for $21m, claiming they made her create illegal fake profiles.
Doriana Silva, a Brazilian living in Toronto, sued the site last year for wrist damage suffered while allegedly inputting 1,000 “fake female profiles” to a Brazilian version of the extramarital site.
Now Ashley Madison have filed a countersuit against her, claiming she kept confidential documents, including “work product and training materials.”
Avid Life Media, the parent company of Ashley Madison, is asking for $100,000 in damages, plus legal costs, and the return of these confidential documents.
Silva says these documents are not their property, and she is using them in the trial as evidence of the company’s wrongdoing, regarding the creation of fake profiles.
Her court documents said: “It was reasonable for Doriana to take steps to preserve the aforementioned documents and others given that Ashley Madison has denied both publicly and in these proceedings that such materials exist at all.”
Avid Life Media responded saying the documents pertained to “quality assurance testing” of the new Brazilian site, and included profiles used to test its reliability.
Silva’s $21m lawsuit states that the company forced her type up fake profiles, which led to severe wrist injuries.
Her suit says that the company did not suggest the practice was unlawful, and that she was led to believe “that doing so was some sort of normal business practice in the industry.”
“The purpose of these profiles is to entice paying heterosexual male members to join and spend money on the website,” the suit says.
“They do not belong to any genuine members of Ashley Madison – or any real human beings at all.”
Ashley Madison responded, calling the lawsuit “frivolous”.
The company also provided photos of Silva riding a jet ski and playing the bongos, allegedly after her stint at Ashley Madison.
The statement reads: “Throughout this lawsuit, Ms. Silva has continued to lead an active life and has shown no side effects from her so called injury, as evidenced by her photo postings, depicting multiple vacations around the world, on social media sites.
“In fact, in several postings Ms. Silva can be seen clearly enjoying herself on a jet ski — an unlikely activity for someone who has allegedly suffered serious injury.”