Onaji Noa agrees not to divulge

Monday, July 03, 2006

Los Angeles (Reuters): Jennifer Lopez's first husband has agreed not to publish intimate details or criticism of the actress-singer while they try to settle a lawsuit over his planned tell-all book, court documents have showed. A preliminary injunction between the star and her former spouse, Ojani Noa, was signed by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge on Thursday and made public a day later, resulting in the cancellation of a hearing in the case. Lopez sued Noa in April to stop him from publishing an expose she said would breach a nondisclosure, ''non-disparagement'' pact between them. She then obtained a temporary restraining order to prevent him from going ahead with the proposed book. The preliminary injunction signed this week will remain in effect until either the two settle their dispute or a nonjury trial is held to decide whether the latest court order will remain permanent.

Under the injunction, the Cuban-born Noa is barred from ''criticizing, denigrating, casting in a negative light or otherwise disparaging'' Lopez. He also may not disclose for financial gain ''any private or intimate details'' about Lopez or their relationship, the court order stated yesterday. Moreover, Noa may not sell or circulate a manuscript of the book and must retrieve any book materials from anyone who may have possession of them and inform those parties that they, too, are barred from disseminating them. In the meantime, both sides were directed to try to ''resolve their dispute without engaging in further litigation,'' the court order states.

According to Lopez's lawsuit, Noa's plans for a tell-all book were revealed in a January 2006 New York Post article, which included the claim Lopez carried on an affair with salsa singer Marc Anthony while he was still married to Puerto Rican model and beauty queen Dayanara Torres. Anthony and Lopez married in June 2004, just days after he was divorced from Torres, and five months after Lopez broke off her much-publicised engagement to actor Ben Affleck. Lopez, 36, claims that Noa's proposed book would violate the terms of a previous legal settlement in which the two were barred from revealing private details about the other for monetary gain and from criticising each other publicly.

Lopez's 10 1/2-month marriage to Noa, the first of her three husbands and who was working at a restaurant when they met, ended in divorce in January 1998. She married her second spouse, dancer Chris Judd, in September 2001 and filed for divorce from him the following July.