A Los Angeles jury Friday found that restaurant owner Dana Hollister intentionally interfered with singer Katy Perry’s attempts to purchase a former convent from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
Perry’s drawn-out legal fight to buy the Los Feliz property was partly settled earlier this year when a judge ruled that the right to sell the property lay with the archdiocese, not the nuns who used to live there and who opposed the sale to the pop star.
According to the jury, Hollister deliberately tried to thwart that sale when she purchased the property from two nuns. The jury awarded the archdiocese $3.47 million in attorney fees and Perry’s company, Bird Nest LLC, $1.57 million in fees.
The jury also found that Hollister acted with malice, oppression or fraud, meaning a second phase of the trial will begin next month to determine if the singer and the church should be awarded punitive damages.
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