A former Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader won her defamation lawsuit against a gossip website and its operator, with a jury awarding her $338,000 in damages Thursday.
Jurors in federal court in Covington found that posts about Sarah Jones on the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based website thedirty.com in 2009 were substantially false. The jury of eight women and two men also found website operator Nik Richie acted with malice or reckless disregard in posting the submissions he said were anonymous.
One post alleged Jones had sex with every Bengals player, and the other said she probably had two sexually transmitted diseases.
Jones had argued that the posts were false and malicious and caused her severe mental anguish. Richie denied any malice and said that he didn’t write the posts and was not required to fact-check submissions before posting them.
And this was just about allegations of consensual sexual activity.
Imagine if there had also been a false allegation of a threat, eh?
Oh, that’s right Victoria – you don’t have to imagine making false allegations about threats, do you?
