Articles Posted in Defamation, Libel and Slander

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Linda Fairstein was once lauded as a champion of women and victims of sexual assault when she was prosecuting the case against the Central Park Five in 1989 and after she succeeded in getting them convicted. Fairstein was in charge of the sex crimes division of the Manhattan district attorney’s office at the time the high-profile case was being investigated and prosecuted, but since all the convictions of the Central Park Five were overturned, the narrative on Fairstein’s career has been similarly upended.

In 2002, Matias Reyes, a man who had already been convicted of murder and a series of rapes, confessed to raping a white woman as she was out jogging in Central Park 13 years earlier. The problem was that Reyes was not one of the five black and Latino men who had been accused and convicted of the crime, and his confession led to the public questioning of the role racism played in how the New York City Police Department and Manhattan district attorney’s office handled the case. Continue reading ›

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As the sexual assault trial of Harvey Weinstein gets underway, people are reminded of the impact of the #MeToo movement on our justice system. We are also reminded of another truth that many victims of sexual assault know all too well, waiting to speak out can mean that the guilty party is immune from criminal prosecution because of the short statute of limitations periods on sexual assault in many states. Victims, unable to pursue justice directly, have begun in increasing numbers turning to the centuries-old tool of defamation lawsuits, opening an alternative legal battleground for dealing with accusations of sexual misconduct.

No one exemplifies this growing trend more than the actress, Ashley Judd. In 2017, Ms. Judd raised allegations about a sexual assault she claims to have suffered at the hands of Weinstein some twenty years earlier. However, like many of the claims of sexual misconduct leveled against Weinstein in the months that followed, Ms. Judd’s claims were too old to prosecute. Undeterred, Ms. Judd sued the producer for defamation in 2018 after reading that Mr. Weinstein’s studio, Miramax, had described Ms. Judd as a “nightmare to work with.”

Ms. Judd’s slander suit is hardly the only high profile defamation suit to come out of the #MeToo era. This year alone several highly publicized defamation cases involving President Trump, the Senate candidate Roy Moore and the actor Johnny Depp are expected to go to trial.

In one such case, Summer Zervos, a former contestant of the president’s popular reality TV show “The Apprentice,” filed a defamation lawsuit against President Trump for his comments on the campaign trail that her accusations of unwanted kissing and groping were fabricated. The president has sought to avoid the suit by arguing that he cannot be sued in state court while in office. E. Jean Carroll filed a similar lawsuit against President Trump after he accused her of lying about his raping her to increase sales of her new book.

While the facts of each libel suit differ, many #MeToo plaintiffs are basing their suits on statements by the men they accused calling them liars. For many plaintiffs, suing for defamation provides them the opportunity to air the facts of what happened years ago, even if they are unable to hold the accused criminally liable. On the other hand, men like Mr. Depp are using defamation suits defensively to preserve their reputations against allegations from women, in his case, his ex-wife Amber Heard, who accused him of domestic abuse. In another case, writer Stephen Elliott sued Moira Donegan, the creator of a widely circulated list of men accused of sexual misconduct that included his name. Continue reading ›

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For the second time in a week, President Trump’s reelection campaign filed a defamation lawsuit against a major media outlet. The target of this lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., is The Washington Post. The allegedly defamatory statements at issue in the lawsuit come from two opinion pieces published by the Washington Post in June 2019.

One of the articles, entitled “Trump: I can win reelection with just my base,” was written by opinion writer for The Washington Post, Paul Waldman. In his piece, Waldman quipped that “who knows what sort of aid Russia and North Korea will give to the Trump campaign, now that he has invited them to offer their assistance?” The President’s reelection campaign alleges in the libel complaint that the statement is false and defamatory because no one associated with the campaign has made any statements inviting assistance from Russia or North Korea in the upcoming election.

The other article, entitled “Trump just invited another Russian attack. Mitch McConnell is making one more likely,” was also penned by an opinion writer at the Washington Post. This second piece “contained the defamatory claim that Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded that the Campaign ‘tried to conspire with’ a ‘sweeping and systematic’ attack by Russia against the 2016 United States presidential election,” the complaint alleges. The complaint argues that statements concerning the conclusion of the Mueller report are false and that “[i]n fact, Special

Counsel Mueller’s Report . . . came to the opposite conclusion.” Trump’s campaign argues that the Mueller Report actually concluded that there was no conspiracy between then-candidate Trump’s campaign and Russia or any coordination with Russia’s efforts to interfere with the 2016 election. Continue reading ›

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A private investigator involved in a controversial investigation of a wrongful conviction, who was later alleged to have employed improper investigative techniques in a book and a documentary, sued several defendants for defamation and false light. The appellate panel reversed the trial court in part, finding that the investigator’s claims were not time-barred.

In 1982, Jerry HIllard and Marilyn Green were murdered in Washington Park in Chicago. Anthony Porter was convicted for the murders and was sentenced to the death penalty. Professor David Protess and other members of Northwestern University’s Innocence Project investigated the case and identified another suspect, Alstory Simon. At some point, members of the Innocence Project came to believe that Simon and not Porter had really committed the murders.

Paul Ciolino was employed as a private investigator and did work for the Innocence Project. Ciolino and another investigator traveled to Milwaukee to meet with Simon. Simon claims that Ciolino pretended to be a police officer from Illinois, and that Ciolino was armed with a handgun at the time of their meeting. Ciolino told Simon that the Innocence Project had sworn statements from Simon’s ex-wife, Inez Jackson, and from an eyewitness to the murders. Ciolino also showed Simon a video that the Innocence Project had made with a paid actor pretending to be the eyewitness. Simon also alleged that Ciolino persuaded him to confess to the murders by promising him that he would receive a sentence of only a few years in prison, and that he would receive money from book and movie deals because of the intense publicity of the case.

The Innocence Project eventually succeeded in freeing Porter from prison, using Simon’s videotaped confession as well as statements from Simon’s ex-wife and her nephew, Walter Jackson. The Cook County State’s Attorney then indicted Simon for the murders. Simon eventually pled guilty and was sentenced to 37 years in prison. Still, many people felt that Simon was not actually responsible for the murders and began investigations of their own to determine whether he was innocent of the crimes.

Inez Jackson and Walter Jackson eventually recanted their statements. The two explained they had implicated Simon in their statements based on promises from Protess. They alleged that Protess and his team had given them food, cash, alcohol, and other things of value to induce them to make statements. Northwestern University later conducted an internal investigation into the journalistic and investigative practices of the Innocence Project under Protess, and he was separated from the University as a result. The Cook County State’s Attorney then investigated Simon’s case and determined that, due to the misconduct on the parts of Protess and Ciolino, the conviction was so tainted that it could not stand. Simon was eventually released from prison after serving 15 years. Continue reading ›

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CNN has agreed to settle a multi-million dollar defamation lawsuit with Covington Catholic student Nicholas Sandmann earlier this month. A CNN spokesperson has confirmed that a settlement was reached but the news outlet has declined to offer further details.

In March of last year, Sandmann filed a defamation lawsuit against CNN seeking more than $275 million in compensatory and punitive damages. The lawsuit alleged that the cable news networked engaged in a “vicious attack” against Sandmann in its coverage of him following his encounter with 64-year-old Native American Nathan Phillips in January of that year.

According to the complaint, which was filed in federal court in Kentucky, “CNN falsely asserted” that Sandmann and his classmates were in a “racis[t]” “mob mentality” and “looked like they were going to lynch” a nearby group of Black Hebrew Israelites “because they didn’t like the color of their skin” or “their religious views.” The suit goes on to allege that CNN further reported that Sandmann and his classmates “surrounded” Phillips and “harassed and taunted” him, creating “a really dangerous situation” during which Sandmann “blocked [Phillips’] escape” and caused Phillips to “fear for his safety and the safety of those with him.” Continue reading ›

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Democratic presidential candidate and congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard filed a defamation lawsuit last week against Hillary Clinton over statements the former Secretary of State made during an interview characterizing Gabbard as a Russian asset. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeks more than $50 million in damages as well as an award of punitive damages for alleged damage to Gabbard’s professional and personal reputation.

Clinton’s allegedly defamatory comments are merely part of an ongoing feud between the politicians that dates back at least until 2016. According to the lawsuit, Clinton has sought revenge on Gabbard ever since Gabbard endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary. Clinton, who the lawsuit refers to as a “cutthroat politician,” made the allegedly slanderous statements as “retribution” for Gabbard’s “perceived slight,” the lawsuit claims. Continue reading ›

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When an employee of a medical parts manufacturer was caught up in a foreign corrupt practices investigation of his employer and subsequently fired, the employee could not sue the employer for defamation. The employer included the former employee on a list of prohibited parties that the employer claimed posed an unacceptable compliance risk for the company. The appellate panel found that these statements were not defamatory because they were expressions of opinion or were the truth.

Biomet is a global corporation that manufactures and sells medical devices. Biomet is headquartered in Warsaw, Indiana. Biomet subsidiary Biomet Argentina, SA employed Alejandro Yeatts from 2005 to 2015. Yeatts worked in the position of Business Manager for South America from 2008 through 2014. Yeatts responsibilities included implementing Biomet’s compliance policies.

Biomet had a distribution agreement with Prosintese, a Brazillian company run by Sergio Galindo. In 2008, Biomet terminated that agreement after it learned that Galindo had bribed healthcare providers to promote and market Biomet products. This conduct is prohibited by the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Yeatts was informed after the fact that Galindo had paid bribes. Yeatts had also attended FCPA training sessions explaining prohibited conduct. Continue reading ›

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Sex traffickers are as capable as the rest of us of using technology for their businesses, including social media. But what if we could prevent them from using social media for their sex trafficking?

Annie McAdams is a personal injury attorney based out of Houston, TX who has sued insurance companies, drunk drivers, restaurants, and real estate developers. Now she’s taking on Facebook and other major tech companies.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 says internet companies are not responsible for what their users post, but according to McAdams, separate laws should exist that require Facebook and other tech companies to warn users about pimps using Facebook and Instagram to lure minors into sex work and that they should do more to foil the pimps in those attempts.

The logic McAdams uses is that if someone sells a lawnmower to someone else, and in the course of using that lawnmower a blade flies off and injures someone, the law requires the seller to take responsibility for the accident, to warn users, and to take action to prevent it from happening again. But those same, basic protections don’t apply to sex trafficking over the internet. Continue reading ›

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Politics is an ugly business and campaigns are often littered with smears and negative advertisements. For Joseph J. Tirio, the race for McHenry County Clerk got particularly ugly and resulted in the publishing of three allegedly defamatory flyers in opposition to Tirio’s candidacy leading up to the 2018 primary election.

The first flyer depicted Tirio as a burglar wearing a mask and gloves and alleged that “Crooked Joe Tirio” had a “secret taxpayer-funded slush fund” and that he was “just another crooked politician.” The back of the flyer stated, in part, that Tirio allegedly used the slush fund to hire four employees and pay for a personal vacation to New Mexico.

In the second flyer, Tirio was again depicted wearing a burglar mask and gloves. It went on to allege that “crooked Joe Tirio” and “his Chicago style politics” were “destroying the GOP with Chicago style sleaze.” The flyer contained a number of allegedly defamatory statements including “Slush fund,” “Taxpayer-funded vacations,” and “Moneyman for the racist campaigns of Brettman & Schuster,” and that “Tirio is the moneyman behind the campaign of RACISM & HATE.” Continue reading ›

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A federal judge reversed himself and reinstated part of a defamation lawsuit filed by Covington Catholic High School student Nicholas Sandmann against The Washington Post. The lawsuit alleged that the newspaper libeled the teen in its coverage of his encounter with a Native American activist at the Lincoln Memorial earlier this year.

The federal judge assigned to the case, Judge William O. Bertelsman, originally dismissed the suit back in July on First Amendment grounds. After a request for reconsideration, the Judge reversed himself saying that the libel suit could go forward while narrowing the scope of the suit from 33 published statements to three.

As we previously wrote, the suit alleged that the paper “targeted and bullied” the 16-year-old in articles it published following in the aftermath of an incident involving Nathan Phillips, a Native American advocate, and the teen who was wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat. The incident occurred while the teen was on a school trip with classmates from Covington Catholic High School to the National Mall where they encountered Phillips on the memorial’s steps. The original complaint sought $250 million in damages.

The specifics of what occurred between Phillips and the students was disputed and media coverage of the encounter, including by The Washington Post, sparked heated debate around the country. In his July opinion, Judge Bertelsman accepted Sandmann’s version of the encounter as is required when ruling on a motion to dismiss. Despite accepting the plaintiff’s description of the encounter, the judge ruled that none of the 33 statements identified in the complaint were defamatory and most constituted constitutionally protected opinion.

Based on a proposed First Amended Complaint filed in connection with the motion to reconsider, Judge Bertelsman reconsidered his previous ruling and granted the plaintiff the ability to seek discovery from The Washington Post on three of 33 allegedly libelous statements reported by the paper. In a five-page written order, the judge identified the three allegedly defamatory statements identified in the amended complaint being reinstated, specifically statements that Sandmann had “blocked” Phillips as he ascended the stairs of the Lincoln Memorial and “would not allow him to retreat.” “Suffice to say that the Court has given this matter careful review and concludes that ‘justice requires’ that discovery be had regarding these statements and their context,” the judge explained.

The order also found that the proposed amended complaint offered by Sandmann beefed up and clarified its allegations concerning actual malice on the part of The Washington Post. “The Court also notes that the proposed First Amended Complaint makes specific allegations concerning the state of mind of Phillips, the principal source of these statements,” the court wrote. “It alleges in greater detail than the original complaint that Phillips deliberately lied concerning the events at issue, and that he had an unsavory reputation which, but for the defendant’s negligence or malice, would have alerted defendant to this fact.” Continue reading ›

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