By Bob Walsh
The jury came in this week in the defamation civil trial against Rolling Stone, it's publisher and a "journalist" in the suit filed by Nicole Eramo, the University of Virginia administrator who was defamed in an article published by Rolling Stone.
The article asserted that a young woman named "Jackie" had been gang-raped at a frat party and that the University refused to take her complaint seriously. The 9,000 word article written by Sabrina Ruben Erdely was almost totally false.
The photo of the principle bad guy was in fact a high school picture of a young man the "victim" knew in high school and who was not a student at UV and was nowhere near there when the alleged crime was committed. There was not a party at the frat house in question on the day in question.
The "victim" also made up a totally fictitious "friend" who allegedly assisted her after the assault. Also when the "victim" went to Eramo, Ms. Eramo did attempt to assist her. However the young adult "victim" refused to cooperate with the police.
The jury decided, after a 17 day trial and 3 days of deliberation, that not only did the magazine, editor and "journalist" defame Eramo but that the act was malicious. That final item is necessary as Eramo is deemed under the law to be a public figure, and the bar is much higher for such a person to make a successful claim of damages.
Rolling Stone eventually retracted the story.
The initial suit was for $7.5 million. The two stories I have read on this didn't specify what the damages awarded by the jury were.
No comments:
Post a Comment