J.Lo to get her day in arbitration

On Monday a Los Angeles judge ordered Jennifer Lopez's first ex-husband, Ojani Noa, to enter arbitration with the Monster-in-Law star over his plans to peddle a racy tell-all book about their short-lived union.

Lopez filed suit against Noa last April, accusing him of trying to extort $5 million from her in exchange for keeping his book off the shelves, and won a preliminary injunction against him in June barrings him from saying anything negative about her in public or profiting in any way from "any private or intimate details" about Lopez or their relationship.

That lawsuit is on hold pending the outcome of the arbitration, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Victor Person ruled Monday, setting a progress hearing for July 30.

Last month Noa challenged Lopez's attempt to keep the rest of these proceedings under wraps, demanding his day in court, protesting his attorney's advice to enter arbitration and stating his regret that he ever agreed to the injunction. Noa has since fired said attorney and was given until today to hire new counsel.

"Basically, they were trying to damage my name and my career, now they want to go private in arbitration," Noa, still sans attorney, said in court Monday.

Person agreed with Lopez's legal eagle, Paul Sorrell, that Noa is bound to the terms of an October 2005 agreement that was reached when the Cuban emigre sued Lopez for breach of contract after she fired him from a managerial post at one of her restaurants. Their $125,000 settlement included a provision prohibiting Noa from going public with any private J.Lo details.

The judge also rejected Noa's request to postpone Monday's ruling until he could fine another lawyer, saying that he almost certainly would have arrived at the same conclusion regardless.

"I have to agree with Mr. Sorrell that there would be no difference in the result," Person said in court.

While Sorrell said after the hearing that he was "absolutely" pleased with the judge's decision, Noa said that he still hopes his book-which, contrary to details previously reported by the New York Post, does not focus that much on sex, he said-finds a publisher.

"I'm not that kind of guy," Noa said when asked about the scandalous details that purportedly can be found within the pages of his ghost-written literary endeavor, including, according to court documents, a description of what he claims to be his and J.Lo's first sexual encounter and allegations of "multiple duplicitous sexual affairs" on Lopez's part.

"This is about my life, coming here from Cuba and falling in love with Jennifer," Noa said, denying that he provided the Post, which ran its first item about the book in January 2006, with any part of his manuscript. He also said that the book was finished before he agreed to the October 2005 court settlement.

Then Noa told reporters outside the courthouse that he had no doubt Lopez cheated on him during their 11-month marriage.

So apparently he's just that kind of guy.