Gawker Media LLC has asked the judge overseeing the company’s bankruptcy to authorize a probe into the relationship between billionaire Peter Thiel and the lawyer representing former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan as well as several of the media group’s other creditors, the Wall Street Journal reported today. In a filing yesterday in bankruptcy court in Manhattan, Gawker’s lawyers said that they believed that Thiel may have been involved in financing as many as eight separate lawsuits that the bankruptcy process is seeking to settle. Thiel, who was outed as gay in 2007 by a Gawker site, has acknowledged bankrolling a legal campaign against Gawker, including the invasion-of-privacy lawsuit brought by the former wrestler, whose real name is Terry Bollea. A Florida jury awarded Bollea damages of $140 million.
