Local business owner sued for $20 million over blog post

When Vision Media Television first contacted Leslie Richard, who runs The Oko Box, a small eco-fashion business out of her Asheville home, she was interested.

“They said that their TV producer wanted me to be interviewed for a documentary on eco-fashion,” she says. “I talked to one of their producers, and she told me that 84 million people were going to see this. She said it would be on PBS, CNN, that it’s going to be aired all over Europe.”

Then came the kicker: VMT wanted $22,900 for production fees and $3,000 for airfare to do the program, according to Richard.

“I was shocked,” she says. “I didn’t know what to say. My store doesn’t have that kind of money.”