NAOMI'S AIDE IS A DRUGS DEALER
From Richard Wallace, US Editor, THE MIRROR

Model Naomi Campbell's new business partner is a convicted drug pusher who sold the notorious date rape drug GHB on the internet.

Party girl Claudine Dematos, 25, spent six months in jail awaiting trial after her arrest before being released on £1million bail.

She now faces up to six years' jail after admitting plotting to distribute a controlled substance online. A spokesman for Naomi said: "This has come as a complete shock to her. She is urgently considering what steps to take next."

Naomi, 32 - who has a history of drug abuse - set up her lifestyle and event-planning firm NC Connect in September with PR Dematos at her side.

Seven months earlier Dematos, who also claims to promote rap badboy P Diddy, admitted being part of a group which made more than £300,000 selling GHB online in just three months.

Lawyer James Miskiewicz, who prosecuted at Central Islip court in New York State, said: "Dematos built the website used to sell GHB, making it easily accessible.

"She was instrumental in the business and criminally responsible for the drug being distributed to customers."

Rodney Gates and Scott Ansaldi were also convicted of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance as well as money- laundering. Dematos gave evidence against them.

Her boyfriend John Goetz, 30, was charged but died of a drug overdose before his trial.

Dematos and Goetz were arrested in a swoop on the PR girl's Manhattan apartment in August, 2000, by police and drug agents. Investigators found an estimated seven million doses of GHB on the premises, ready to be sold.

The clear liquid was mixed with sugar and a soft drink powder, then bottled and sold under the names Verve, Dream On and Pina Colada.

GHB - known to clubbers as "liquid ecstasy" - was declared unsafe in 1990 and made a Class A drug in 2000 after it was used in a series of date rapes.

Naomi set up NC Connect with Dematos and a friend. Their website boasts that they will "put important people, exotic places and magnificent things together".

The model sued the Mirror in February 2001 after we published a story that said she was attending Narcotics Anonymous and had lied about her drug use in interviews.

She won a derisory £3,500 damages despite being branded a liar by a High Court judge. The Appeal Court toppled the ruling in October leaving Naomi with a total costs bill of £750,000.

She is currently petitioning the House of Lords to see whether they will consider the case.

Supermodel Naomi Takes Privacy Case to the Lords
LONDON (Reuters) - British supermodel Naomi Campbell has taken a privacy battle to the UK's highest court in a bid to win back damages awarded against a tabloid newspaper which revealed her struggle against drugs.

Last October, the Appeal Court stripped Campbell of $5,700, along with thousands of pounds in court costs, awarded to her after she sued the Daily Mirror for breaching her privacy by reporting, correctly, that she visited a drug clinic.

Campbell is seeking to challenge this decision in the House of Lords, Britain's most senior court.

On Friday the three judges considering the appeal, headed by Lord Bingham, the country's most senior law lord, said they had put their decision on hold to allow Mirror bosses a chance to object to the latest legal moves.

The Mirror has until February 18 to register objections.

Campbell was originally awarded damages after the High Court backed the 31-year-old model's claims that the paper had breached her confidence, privacy and the Data Protection Act.

But that verdict was then overturned by a three-judge appeals court panel which said the newspaper's reporting was "justifiable in the public interest."