Miss Universe beauty Alicia Machado at the heart of Trump ‘Miss Piggy’ row once accused of aiding would-be murderer and threatening to kill judge
Court documents in 1998 revealed she was accused of driving her boyfriend from the scene of a murder attempt - at a woman's funeral
THE Miss Universe beauty at the heart of the Donald Trump 'Miss Piggy' row was once accused of aiding a would-be murderer and threatening to kill a judge, it emerged today.
In 1998 - just two years after being crowned - Venezuelan Alicia Machado was accused in court documents in her home country of driving her boyfriend away from the scene of a shooting.
Yesterday we told how Trump was accused of calling Alicia ‘Miss Piggy’ after she piled on weight after winning the crown.
The highly-respected Associated Press (AP) now reports she was once ordered to testify in court over some very serious allegations.
Machado's then boyfriend, Juan Rodriguez Reggeti, was accused of shooting his brother-in-law Francisco Sbert Moukso at his wife's funeral- who was the accused man's sister.
It was claimed Reggeti believed Sbert had driven his sister to suicide and he took revenge, the Associated Press said.
Rodriguez was eight months pregnant when she jumped to her death off a fifth-floor balcony.
It's alleged that witnesses saw the beauty queen drive her boyfriend away from the scene of the crime, and that her boyfriend had snatched his dead sister's 11-month-old son as well.
But her lawyer, Ricardo Koesling, was quoted in a local newspaper calling the claims 'a huge stupidity' and saying: "She wasn't even present at the site of the incident."
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Machado was not indicted when the judge in the case said there was insufficient evidence that she was at the scene of the alleged crime.
A judge indicted her boyfriend, described as 'a 26-year-old graphic designer with movie star good looks' - and police mounted a series of raids to find him, to no avail.
Then a month later the judge went on national television to allege that Machado had threatened to kill him if he indicted Sbert.
Judge Maximiliano Fuenmayor said on national television that she threatened 'to ruin my career as a judge and ... kill me', the AP reported.
that he 'said she would make sure, using her friendship with the president (Rafael Caldera), that my career as judge is ruined and then she would kill me'.
The indictment, if it had led to criminal trial, would have carried a jail term of up to 18 months if she had been found guilty.
It's reported that she admitted making the call but that that she said it was to thank him for what it described as 'his unbiased pursuit of justice'.
said she was questioned behind closed doors by the judge for two hours, then emerged and spoke to local journalists.
"I don't have anything to do with this,"she said, crying, it reported.
"I was ill with a stomach ache because of my diet. As you can see I am yet again, as God and the Virgin would have it, 15 kilos [33lb] lighter and focusing on my work."
Hillary Clinton referred to her in the first live presidential debate on Monday night when branding rival Donald Trump 'sexist'.
She said of her: "One of the worst things he said was about a woman in a beauty contest.
"He loves beauty contests, supporting them and hanging around them, and he called this woman 'Miss Piggy,' then he called her 'Miss Housekeeping' because she was Latina."
On Tuesday morning Trump agreed that he had told her to lose weight but said she needed to.
"She gained a massive amount of weight, and it was a real problem,"; he said.