HONOLULU - A woman has filed a lawsuit against Duane (Dog) Chapman, alleging the TV bounty hunter and his crew threw her down a flight of stairs and broke her back while apprehending her boyfriend in Hawaii.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Audrey Emery and seeks unspecified damages to be determined at trial.
It accuses Chapman and his fellow bounty hunters of injuring Emery at her Pearl City apartment Jan. 26, 2005 in the course of arresting Stuart Calistro and filming for the A&E reality series "Dog the Bounty Hunter."
"They're filming this TV segment and she is upset because you have these thugs breaking into her apartment and she doesn't want them in there, so they decide the convenient thing is to throw her down the stairs," Emery's lawyer Richard Turbin said Thursday.
Chapman and his wife, Beth, released a statement saying their family has become a "target of frivolous lawsuits and publicity seeking attorneys."
"We pride ourselves in making sure that everything we do is within the bounds of the law and we are confident that we did so in this case," he said.
"The videotape in the television show itself demonstrates that the charges against us are baseless."
Meanwhile, Chapman is waiting for a ruling by a Mexican judge about his pending extradition in a criminal case there.
The 53-year-old reality star, currently free on US$300,000 bail, has been charged under Mexican law with "deprivation of liberty" for his June 2003 capture of fugitive convicted rapist Andrew Luster, the Max Factor heir, in Puerto Vallarta.
His publicist said a decision in the case is expected by Tuesday.
