Tom Cruises lawyer threatens to sue National Enquirer over story, while settlement centered on Suri

Tom Cruises legal team has threatened to sue over a National Enquirer story that calls the Mission Impossible star a monster who abused Katie Holmes and kept their daughter Suri locked away, in a tiny windowless room.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Cruises attorney Bert Fields sent a letter yesterday calling the Enquirers cover -- which blares the headline, Inside Tom House of Horrors -- "disgraceful and lurid.

He goes on to say that the tabloids story is riddled with lies about the divorcing Hollywood couples relationship.

Storms Media Group

Tom Cruise in 2009

The Enquirers July 23 story asserts that Cruise was, holding [Katie] a virtual prisoner in his $35 million Beverly Hills mansion. And that the Minority Report star subjected his wife to relentless verbal abuse, emotional punishments, humiliation and intimidation until Holmes decided to break free.

The story also says that when Holmes told Cruise she wanted to leave the church of Scientology, he, went nuts and read Katie the riot act for four straight days until she was forced to apologize.

"Your cover announces, as a fact, that 'THE REAL TOM CRUISE IS A MONSTER, Fields writes in a letter to the Enquirer that was obtained by THR. Mr. Cruise is certainly not a 'monster.' He is a caring father, a hardworking actor and, above all, an honest, decent man."

The explosive story also says that Cruise and Holmes daughter, Suri, 6, was hidden from the world until she was 5 months old and spent her time in a tiny wood-paneled room with no windows at [a] mansi! on in Te lluride, Colo.

Fields writes, Mr. Cruise's home in Telluride, like his home in Beverly Hills, is a pleasant and loving home. Suri was not forced to stay for five months in a tiny windowless room. She spent most of her time with Tom and Katie. She slept in a nursery adjoining their bedroom. It has a window."

The letter ends with a threat of legal action if the tabloid wont retract each and every one of your false allegations about Mr. Cruise with the same prominence and emphasis as you gave your original false and defamatory assertions."

The power lawyer also threatens to "call the Court's attention to your long record of printing and publishing malicious lies about celebrities in order to enrich yourselves at their expense."

Fields says that the story would cause Cruise hundreds of millions of dollars of professional and personal damages, and that, these disgusting lies about Mr. Cruise will be there for all time, to be read by his children and, someday, his grandchildren."

We intend to hold American Media, and everyone who participated in the perpetuation of this scurrilous attack, jointly and severally liable, Fields writes.

Meanwhile, the LA Times reported today that one key to the negotiations between Cruise and Holmes, centered on how the parents would choose nannies for their daughter.

The agreement provides Cruise with visitation rights but gives Holmes the lead role in choosing how Suri will be educated, the LA Times reports.