The former mistress of Terra chairman and founder Pedro Martin is suing him for defamation in an ongoing feud that two years ago saw Martin secure a temporary restraining order against her.
Johanna Vibe Ener filed the suit on Tuesday from England — where she now lives after fleeing Miami three years ago — and is representing herself. She accuses the Miami developer of orchestrating an “elaborate concerted campaign to publicly defame and ruin” her. Ener said Martin did so in “a last-ditch effort to save his personal life, his marriage and business reputation.” Ener and Martin had two children together.
Ener claims Martin made “deceitful, scandalous and highly offensive statements” to media outlets when he sought and won the temporary restraining order against her in 2017. Ener did not respond to emails and a phone message seeking comment. She is seeking $200 million in damages, claiming that he owes her millions from a promised trust fund for their children and insurance policies.
David Duckenfield, a spokesperson for Martin, said Ener’s 96-page complaint is a brazen attempt to use the media as a platform to spread falsehoods and inflict pain on his client and his family for financial gain.
“Pedro Martin is the victim of extortion masqueraded as a lawsuit brought by Ms. Vibe Ener,” Duckenfield said. “She has evaded justice in the United States, flagrantly violated the law on several occasions, is currently a fugitive from justice for her failure to appear before a judge in a pending case and has subsequently fled the country.”
Duckenfield said Martin will vigorously defend himself. A Terra spokesperson said Ener’s lawsuit has nothing to do with the company or its chief executive, David Martin, Pedro’s eldest son. He declined further comment.
In a 74-page motion to dismiss filed Friday, Martin’s lawyers claim her complaint is “a vitriolic, malicious attempt to extort and embarrass the defendant from afar by regurgitating the same false allegations that have been repeatedly rejected by the family court.”
The on-and-off-again couple permanently split up three years ago when Martin petitioned Miami-Dade Circuit Court for the restraining order against the Finland born model. The two met in New York in 2009.
He alleged Ener was attempting to extort him and provided text messages from her threatening him if he didn’t pay. In 2013, Ener tried to get a temporary restraining order against Martin’s wife, but the judge found no cause.
Among the charges in Ener’s lawsuit are claims that she was forced to leave her home in Miami because of death threats against her, her mother and her children. She also said that Martin and his attorneys filed bogus criminal complaints against her and fed false information to media outlets that Ener was an exotic dancer.
According to the suit, she also claims Martin gave her a $100,000 engagement ring, and that they had a “spiritual wedding ceremony.” Ener accuses Martin of reneging on several agreements to take care of her, her son and the two children they had together, including a $60 million trust fund and a $3 million insurance policy for each child. Ener attached copies of the agreements bearing Martin’s signature with her lawsuit.
As part of Martin’s motion to dismiss, his lawyers included copies of judicial rulings in the restraining order case that found her in contempt of court for fleeing the U.S. to Europe with her three children in the summer of 2017. That October, then-Judge Ariana Fajardo Orshan — now the U.S. Attorney for South Florida — issued an order giving local law enforcement agencies the authority to seek an arrest warrant for Ener and return her to Miami.
The restraining order against Ener has since expired and Martin’s case was dismissed last year.
“After nearly two years in hiding, Vibe Ener has suddenly emerged to file what purports to be a civil complaint against Mr. Martin and a number of unnamed and unidentifiable so-called ‘co-conspirators,’” according to Martin’s dismissal motion. “Under the guise of a defamation claim, Ener attempts not only to rewrite history but also to re-write the very court orders that she has been violating for the past two years.”