Did Lawyer Who Scored $11M Libel Win Sue & Serve Wrong Website?
A $11 million libel victory scored by a schoolteacher who allegedly was falsely accused online of both an affair with a football player and having two venereal diseases may not be a done deal.
It appears that Sarah Jones’ lawyer sued and served another website with a similar-sounding name, rather than the intended defendant, www.thedirty.com, reports Techdirt. It relies on a Politico post for news of the claimed gaffe.
However, attorney Eric Deters, who won an $11 million default judgment against www.thedirt.com and its owner in federal court in Kentucky, tells the ABA Journal he still thinks there may be a connection between the two sites and their corporate owners. “They have opened up negotiations to try to settle this case,” he says of the named defendants.
And if he’s wrong, he expects to get a similar judgment against www.thedirty.com and its owner, Deters continues. “We plan on going after the other defendants in the same way and–guess what?–we’ll get judgments against them just as big.”
Hooman Karamian, who has adopted the screen name of Nik Richie, is the owner of www.thedirty.com, according to Politico. He says neither he nor his company has been served and adds that the offending post was taken down some time ago.
An English teacher in northern Kentucky, the plaintiff moonlights as a cheerleader for the Cincinnati Bengals.
