'He's cooked': Pentagon official appears to be suing astrologist mistress in messy case

A high-ranking Pentagon official is locked in a legal battle with an online celebrity following the end of his alleged extramarital affair with the Florida woman who calls herself “the internet’s most notorious astrologer."

A John Doe lawsuit was filed Aug. 22 against Amy Tripp in Palm Beach County, Florida, accusing the online astrologist who calls herself "Starheal" of harassment, bullying and defamation following the end of their 15-month affair, and the plaintiff is described as a Department of Defense official who New York Magazine's The Cut determined was Anthony Tata.

"The lawsuit frames the relationship between Doe and Tripp as 'a casual sexual relationship as well as a professional relationship regarding the astrology business,'" the website reported. "Doe, who’s described as a recently confirmed Defense Department official and retired from the military, says that he developed 'an interest in astrology' and invested in Tripp’s company, Starheal LLC, in exchange for 5 percent equity."

Tripp, who's probably best known for correctly predicting the exact date when Joe Biden would end his re-election campaign, told Doe in June that astrological signs told her that his confirmation was imminent, and the suit claims that impending development led him to break up with her by text, saying he hoped to reconcile with his wife.

The suit alleges that Tripp started "lashing out" and publicly posting false claims about Doe and his wife, as well as repeatedly calling them and threatening violence, and The Cut found Palm Beach County court records showing Tata was granted a temporary restraining order against her.

Other data points match up with Tata, including the July 15 confirmation vote mentioned in the suit, which also specifies that Doe is a resident of Palm Beach County, and a reference to the plaintiff as a novelist, and Tata has published several action thrillers.

"The lawyers listed on John Doe’s lawsuit, one of whom represents Tata in the matter of the restraining order against Tripp, said they would neither confirm nor deny that Doe is Tata," The Cut reported. "A representative for Tripp said that, 'Ms. Tripp strenuously denies the allegations in the complaint and trusts that the process will fully vindicate her.'"

The suit alleges that Tripp appeared to be trying to extort $25,000 from Doe in exchange for her silence, and one text message purportedly from her to Doe's wife allegedly threatens to file a police report falsely accusing him of an unspecified crime.

Tripp herself appeared to vaguely reference the suit in a since-deleted tweet. “Coercive controllers love to humiliate their victims and put them in double binds (orchestrated situations that no matter what they do it’s bad for them),” she wrote on Thursday. “They also make false allegations and always want to control the narrative to silence and discredit their victim."

"He won’t get confirmed," the message reads. "He’s cooked.”

“I just told the White House. You want to be next?” reads another message to Doe's wife. “You have skeletons in your closet.”

Tata, who was confirmed last month as under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, is a retired U.S. Army brigadier general who served in Afghanistan and later served as a school superintendent and secretary of transportation in North Carolina, and President Donald Trump nominated him after the 2020 election to serve in a top Pentagon position.

However, the White House was later forced to withdraw that nomination over reports about his past Islamophobic tweets about Barack Obama.