Jeffrey Archer \nLONDON - Think sex, politics, and perjury and you might think Washington. But not this time - this time, it's novelist Jeffrey Archer, who allegedly paid a prostitute thousand to stay quiet about having sex with him, and who's been dumped as the Conservative Party's candidate to be London's first-ever elected Mayor over the prospect that he might have had a friend lie on his behalf during the original case.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation says this scandal traces back to a libel trial Archer launched against a newspaper which made those allegations twelve years ago. That paper alleged Archer's payoffs to the prostitute, allegations he denied, and Archer won over a million dollars damages. But the CBC also says Archer asked a friend to lie for him in court, though the testimony was never used, and the friend confessed last weekend.
That prompted the Conservative Party to dump him as their mayoral candidate, the CBC says, adding police are now also probing whether to charge the novelist with "perverting the course of justice."
And there's more - the CBC says the newspaper which lost the original libel trial now wants its money back with interest, which could work out to over $7 million.
