Oksana Grigorieva to Lawyer: ONLY $15 Million!?

Oksana Grigorieva disavowed the $15 million settlement her lawyers got from Mel Gibson this spring not because she feared for her baby daughter, as she says, but because she felt the actor would pay a lot more to avoid the bad publicity.

We're not lawyers, but ... sounds a little like extortion to us.

A text sent June 2 from Oksana to Eric George, the lawyer who negotiated her $15 million mediation package, is laden with buyer's remorse, complaining that George never told her about a domestic violence claim, which could up the ante.

Underscoring how important the Mel Gibson tapes were in the mediation, Oksana says, "Forget about the tapes for the moment. This is the case of domestic violence."

The point - no one raised the issue of domestic violence during the mediation - it was about the tapes. Seriously shady stuff here. Was it ever really about poor Lucia?

Oksana says her relationship with Mel ended due to"Mels (sic) domestic violence, the only reason and the fact, with proof, and I run away to save my children."

Then she lays her cards on the table: "If the opposition is buying my silence, please, we have to renegotiate the custody portion and secure the monetory (sic)."

Also in the text, Oksana Grigorieva makes it clear she had a strategy all along, and aware of her strongest bargaining chip: "He doesn't want this publicity."

"I have lots of questions about the moneytory (sic) part also, i'd (sic) like us to get together and discus (sic) everything," she adds, "I am not bluffing."

Law enforcement sources say the text is part of the extortion investigation to determine if Oksana leveraged the tapes to score the $15 million package.

The theory: After signing the agreement, Oksana got greedy and decided she could get more than $15 million by adding a fresh domestic violence claim.

Was that whole "fearing for her life" bit all an exaggeration to get paid? No matter what Mel did, it's getting hard to take anything Oksana says seriously.

In other news, Mel will be front and center in court Monday as his lawyers ask the judge to strip Oksana of custody and award it to him. He'll be there in person because he wants to show how serious he is and how unstable she is.