Since the beginning of this month, Monaco’s Prince Albert II has been wrapped with legal issues involving a American man claiming to once have been the Prince’s spymaster and owes back pay.
AP Photo/Lionel Cironneau, File
Robert Eringer claims to have worked for Albert from 2002 to 2007. His job was to sort out any corrupt people who might give the Principality a bad image. Eringer says he was never formally discharged from the position. He also claims to have been working for the Monaco Intelligence Service (M.I.S.) during that time.
He is now demanding 40,000 euros, or $59,600 in back pay. Supposedly, Eringer wanted 400,000 euros initially in September as a way of keeping the issue between him and the Prince. When the Monagesque royal did not agree, Eringer filed suit in California.
On Wednesday, Prince Albert’s New York lawyer, Stanley S. Arkin, said in a statement that the lawsuit has nothing to do with matters “associated with California … or the United States.”
Arkin also said that Eringer is “not credible”. He added the lawsuit has “pages upon pages of unrelated and seemingly bizarre anecdotes which have nothing to do with his so-called claim. Basically, Eringer’s lawsuit couches a modest breach-of-contract claim in a complaint replete with grandiose, scurrilous and largely irrelevant allegations, redolent of a crude ’shake-down’ or blatant extortion.”
Arkin even pointed out that Prince Albert has right to immunity by being a head of state.
In addition, the royal palace in Monaco is denying that there ever was an intelligence service in the country. Eringer’s ID card, which was published in Paris Match, could not be proved legitimate.
