HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Caitlin Sanchez, the teenage actress who voiced the popular television character Dora the Explorer, is suing her former bosses.
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Manhattan Supreme Court, Sanchez and her parents claim the young star was pressured into signing a complicated contract and then cheated out of millions of dollars, New York's Daily News reports.
"I've never seen as convoluted and inscrutable contract as I've seen here," Sanchez's lawyer, John Balestriere, tells the paper, adding that his client was cheated out of "millions, perhaps tens of millions."
The suit alleges Sanchez and her parents were given 22 minutes to read the 14-page contract when she landed the part in 2007. It claims her own agent, Jason Bercy of the Cunningham Escott Slevin Doherty Talent Agency, threatened the deal would fall through if they didn't sign quickly.
Bercy declined comment when reached by the paper.
The lawsuit, which names Nickelodeon, MTV Networks and Viacom International as defendants, alleges Sanchez was woefully underpaid, not compensated for hundreds of hours of recording, and forced to promote the show for a "meager travel stipend of $40 a day."
Viacom has dismissed the allegations.
"We knew this was coming," Michael Fricklas, executive vice president and general counsel for Viacom, told the paper. "It is completely without merit."
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