- Shannon Marketic
Shannon LaRhea Marketic (born
January 14 ,1971 ), is a beauty queen fromMalibu, California , who wasMiss USA 1992.Pageant career
Marketic was crowned
Miss Arizona Teen USA 1989 but held the title for only a week and a half after it was discovered an error had been made and she had actually placed first runner-up. [cite news|url=http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=KC&p_theme=kc&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_topdoc=1&p_text_direct-0=0EAF3D6C8D7B15F8&p_field_direct-0=document_id&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&s_trackval=GooglePM|title=Miss USA '92 recalls title she won, then lost |publisher=The Kansas City Star|date=1992-02-09|page=A6|accessdate=2007-02-23]A few years later, she became
Miss California USA 1992, and went on to representCalifornia in the 1992 Miss USA pageant, which was broadcast live fromWichita, Kansas in February 1992 — she placed second highest on average during the final Top 10 competiton and during the top 6 judges' questions, entering the final 3 in second place and eventually winning the 1992 crown. She also won the Miss Photogenic award.Shannon went on to compete in the 1992 Miss Universe pageant held in
Bangkok, Thailand on May 8 and was one of 10 semifinalists who competed for the title.She has written many books about
Christian subjects. She has acted in many movies and had a quick stint as the theatre teacher for a prestigous private school in Dallas Texas. She is currently working as a model.Brunei controversy
In 1997, Marketic filed a lawsuit against the ruling family of
Brunei for $90 million. In the case, Shannon alleges that she and 6 other young women were paid $127,200 each for a modeling job in Brunei (whereas on the ABC news program "20/20 ", Marketic said she was supposed to provide "intellectual conversations" with visiting guests of the royal family). These other women includeMiss United Kingdom runner upPaula Bradbury .Marketic maintained that she and the women were held as "sex slaves" and were "intimidated and coerced into performing physically and morally repulsive acts of prostitution."http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/sultan9.html, Page 9 of the lawsuit] They were apparently ordered to dance for 5-6 hours every night at parties during which their bodies and private parts were groped and grabbed by men. During the dances Shannon was also allegedly abused verbally with comments made about her bare breasts. http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/sultan7.html, Page 7 of the lawsuit] The women were often told to go with a man to have "tea" with him and then had sex with him.http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,1664,00.html, E! Online article about Shannon] In her interview on "20/20", Marketic said that after 32 days of being held against her will, she managed to smuggle a letter out to the US Embassy; shortly afterwards, she was allegedly paid $10,000 and forced to fly back to the United States alone. The case was thrown out due to the immunity of the ruling family as heads of state.Fact|date=April 2008 There has been no further investigation into this case although there are allegations both supporting and refuting her claims. Paula Bradbury separately sued the Sultan and won 500,000 pounds in settlement. [http://www.highbeam.com/library/doc0.asp?docid=1G1:60638435&refid=ink_tptd_np&skeyword=&teaser=, People Magazine about settlement]
References
External links
* [http://www.shannonmarketic.com Official site of Shannon Marketic]
*
* [http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,286590,00.html]Miss Universe Organization titleholders
Year=1992
Miss Universe=Michelle McLean
Miss USA=Shannon Marketic
Miss Teen USA=Jamie Solinger
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