Drug-Smuggling 'Samsung Heiress' Is Officially a Grifter
Samsung says Lisette Lee, the Beverly Hills woman caught with 500 lbs. of marijuana on her Gulfstream jet, is lying about being an heiress to their fortune. Hollywood acquaintances say she's been calling herself one for years.
Lisette flew from Van Nuys, California to Columbus, Ohio aboard a chartered jet loaded with 23 bales of marijuana, worth an estimated $500,000. Facing up to 40 years in prison and a $2 million fine, Lisette pleaded "heiress," pointing to her last name, which is the same as the Korean family that owns Samsung Electronics. But Samsung has now issued a statement denying Lisette:
Contrary to some media reports, Lisette Lee is not an heiress of Samsung Electronics and is not a member of Samsung's Lee family.
Lisette Lee Morita has been telling the Samsung story for years. At a 2007 charity dinner where Lisette was photographed beside L.A. wine "guru" Christian Navarro, the Samsung story was already full force, says a fellow party-goer:
The dinner was May 2007. Bogart Wine Aficionado Dinner. Samsung connection was dinner gossip. Came more out of Christian's profile than hers—he has a rep as something of a playboy/player. And she was gorgeous that night, enough to causes murmurs even in LA—more beautiful than that awful mugshot would suggest. I didn't interact with her, but they were the glam couple of the evening. Then again, the evening's competition for the title was Jerry O'Connell and Rebecca Romajin, so take that for what you will.
One of Lisette's movie industry friends (she was briefly a bit actress) wrote in to say he couldn't believe she was lying: Her mother is the sister of renowned Samsung egomaniac and criminal Lee Kun-hee, he said, and her father is related to Sony founder Akio Morita. Lisette's friend thinks Mrs. Lee lived in a "huge estate in Beverly Park," home to such filthy rich folks as Denzel Washington and Sylvester Stallone. So is Samsung lying, or is Lisette? Is her family a shunned offshoot of the Samsung's Lee family, or is it all a grift? [BusinessWire, ColumbusDispatch, 10TV, images of Lisette and her contraband cargo via the DEA.]
