David Jay Pecker was born on September 24,1951 and is an American publishing executive and businessman who was the CEO of American Media until August 2020.
24 Facts About David Pecker
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David Pecker was the publisher of Men's Fitness, Muscle and Fitness, Flex, Fit Pregnancy, Shape, and Star.
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David Pecker was the publisher of National Enquirer, Sun, Weekly World News, and Globe.
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David Jay Pecker was born on September 24,1951, in the Bronx, New York City.
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David Pecker's father was a bricklayer who died in 1967 when Pecker was 16.
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David Pecker graduated from New Rochelle High School in 1969 and enrolled at Westchester Community College.
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Eight years later, CBS sold its magazine division in a leveraged buyout to its manager, Peter Diamandis; David Pecker stayed on in his position.
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In 2019, David Pecker announced that he had agreed to drop more of AMI's tabloids and sell the National Enquirer, Globe and National Examiner to Hudson News.
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David Pecker is on the board of directors of iPayment Holdings, Inc.
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In 2016, David Pecker revealed to the Toronto Star that American Media Inc now relied on support from Chatham Asset Management and its owner Anthony Melchiorre due to financial troubles.
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David Pecker has described himself as a close friend of Trump.
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David Pecker supported Trump's initial run for president as part of the Reform Party in 2000.
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Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen requested that David Pecker's AMI buy the rights to Stormy Daniels's story, though David Pecker refused to do so.
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David Pecker had directed AMI to purchase the exclusive rights to the story for $150,000 in 2016, allegedly to keep it from the public.
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Shortly after the payment was made, David Pecker ordered the reporters to drop the story.
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On February 27,2019, Cohen testified under oath to the House Oversight Committee that he and David Pecker conspired to "catch-and-kill" stories which had the potential to damage Trump.
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David Pecker testified that the National Enquirer engaged in a practice of "checkbook journalism" which involved paying sources for stories, and that he "gave a number to the editors that they could not spend more than $10,000" and he had final say over celebrity stories, though he did not discuss his relationship with Trump during his first day of testimony.
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On his second day of testimony, David Pecker would give more detail about his relationship with Trump, stating that Michael Cohen used to feed him negative stories about Trump's enemies.
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David Pecker specifically named the first "catch-and-kill" scheme targeted Dino Sajudin, a former Trump Tower doorman who alleged Trump fathered an illegitimate girl with a maid at Trump Tower.
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The second "catch-and-kill" scheme involved Karen McDougal, with David Pecker stating that he sent then-National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard to California to interview McDougal after Howard got word of her allegation.
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David Pecker noted how he, Howard, and Michael Cohen conspired to get McDougal's cooperation, with McDougal ultimately agreeing to accept a $150,000 payment to give her story to the National Enquirer.
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David Pecker said that Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen had asked Pecker to pay McDougal with the promise that Trump would reimburse him.
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David Pecker sent an invoice from his shell company, Investor Advisory Services, to Cohen's shell company, Resolution Consultants.
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David Pecker testified that he was aware at the time that it was illegal to coordinate with a political campaign to make this kind of payment to influence an election.