Judge refuses to halt DVD release of ‘Borat’

updated 9:49 a.m. ET Dec. 12, 2006

LOS ANGELES - A judge rejected a request by two fraternity brothers to halt the DVD release of the hit spoof movie “Borat.”

West Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Joseph S. Biderman also refused to order the removal of a scene that includes the two men, who claim they had been duped into misbehaving on camera.

Biderman issued his two-page decision on Friday after hearing arguments the previous day.

The South Carolina fraternity brothers filed a lawsuit Nov. 9 claiming they were tricked into making racist and sexist remarks to British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen in “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.”

In one scene of the mockumentary, Cohen as rowdy Kazakh journalist Borat hangs out with the men in a motor home and watches the Pamela Anderson-Tommy Lee sex tape.

The fraternity brothers claim the filmmakers got them drunk before getting them to sign release forms agreeing to appear in the film. Their names do not appear in the lawsuit.

The film “made plaintiffs the objects of ridicule, humiliation, mental anguish, and emotional and physical distress,” the lawsuit claims.

A trial date for the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified monetary damages, has not been set.

Louis Petrich, an attorney for 20th Century Fox and One America Productions, said he was pleased about the judge’s decision.

Calls to the plaintiffs’ attorney, Olivier Taillieu, were not immediately returned.

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