He said she said; an olympic pool full of tears; and oh yes a defamation lawsuit?

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Man denies allegations he used sex tape to blackmail wife
Jennifer Yang/Staff Reporter

December 31, 2010

Manhattan investor David Rucker was out of the country Tuesday when he received a worried phone call from his lawyer.

The lawyer had learned that Lily Shang, the 24-year-old former Torontonian Rucker is in the process of divorcing, was filing papers with Manhattan’s Supreme Court. He asked Rucker: Is there something I should know?

“I said, ‘Well, I don’t know. I haven’t heard from her in weeks,’” Rucker told the Star. “On Wednesday, we started getting phone calls from reporters.”

Suddenly, Rucker found himself fielding questions about sex, lies and videotapes. According to a court filing by Shang, Rucker threatened to release their sex tapes — with himself edited out of the footage — if she didn’t agree to a smaller financial settlement in their divorce.

Shang is now trying to block the release of the footage on the grounds that she is a “joint author” and co-owns the copyright.

But according to Rucker, whose name is now splashed across the pages of New York’s tabloids, the allegations are “just not true.”

“I can’t figure out in what conversation she thought that I had ever implied such a thing,” he said, adding he last spoke with Shang in November. “This morning, I went back through emails that we had. . . and looked up phone records and that sort of thing.”

“It appears to be a press stunt of some sort, to maybe try to make me look bad,” he continued. “It’s the only thing I can think of.”

Rucker, a 26-year-old managing partner with asset management firm Golden Archer Investments, said he has yet to see the court documents or speak with Shang or her lawyer about the allegations.

When asked about the videos, Rucker said they “may have existed at one point” but are now squirreled away on one of his external hard drives. He said he will likely delete the files if he ever finds them.

Rucker and Shang “were in love at some point,” he concedes, but the relationship unraveled for reasons Rucker refuses to discuss. “Yeah, let’s just skip that part,” he said.

Shang has been portrayed by Manhattan newspapers as a party girl and social climber, someone who once blogged about a life “filled with glamorous parties, beautiful friends, money, politics, and a burning ambition to become something more.”

But according to Rucker, his estranged wife is no club-hopping socialite. Certainly, her Toronto past illustrates a woman of more serious proclivities, with experience that includes serving as a papal youth delegate, volunteering with the 2006 Liberal leadership campaign and studying in an honours program at Wilfrid Laurier University.

The Star learned of Shang’s story Wednesday from her friend and former colleague, Toronto publicist Lowell Hall, who contacted the media before consulting her. Shang’s ordeal was already making the rounds in New York; Hall wanted to pre-empt the story before it spread north of the border, he said.

On Wednesday, Shang told the Star she was “devastated” to see her private affairs in the papers.

She declined further interviews on Thursday.

“I cannot express to you how much grief this has caused her and her family,” her publicist wrote in an email. “There is not enough room in an Olympic pool to fill enough tears I have heard from Lily crying inconsolably about this unfortunate situation.”

Shang earlier said she anticipated Rucker would deny the allegations against him, because “David always says what’s in his best interest.”

But Rucker insists he would never jeopardize his own career by releasing such embarrassing videos. He is now contemplating suing Shang for defamation of character.