People News

Tom Cruise quizzed about phone-tapping

Dec 20, 2012, 20:36 GMT

Tom Cruise

Tom Cruise has been questioned for three hours in relation to his phone-tapping lawsuit.

The 'Mission Impossible' star - who is being sued for $5 million for allegedly conspiring with his lawyer Bert Fields and private investigator Anthony Pellicano, who is now in jail, to unlawfully record magazine editor Michael Davis Sapir's conversations - was reportedly quizzed by attorneys for the plaintiff at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in New York on Tuesday (18.12.12).

A source told gossip website RadarOnline.com: 'It was all very secretive. This battle has been ongoing and getting to the point where Cruise had to sit for a deposition obviously took a long time.'

The editor filed the lawsuit in 2009 against the 50-year-old actor and the editor's lawyers deposed him for the first time this week.

The ongoing lawsuit is said to be linked to a previous case filed in 2001, during which Tom sued the magazine editor for offering a $500,000 reward to anyone who could provide video evidence that the actor was gay and later claimed he received an email with a video.

It was later revealed that the video never existed but the editor claims that Tom and his team illegally recorded his telephone conversations to secure evidence against him.

Tom - who is also being accused of hiring the private investigator to tap phones during his divorce to Nicole Kidman in the lawsuit - has denied any wrongdoing.