Jury awards Ventura $1.8M in Chris Kyle defamation case

[Trip McNeely]

Alabama Tick.

[CJ]

I am just trying to understand this but why does everyone just assume he is lying?

I don't anything anyone is assuming that. I think it's Ventura's asshole reputation. I personally think it was an embellishment, maybe to spur publicity for his book. It was the first question out of Bill O'Reilly's mouth when he was interviewed about the book. I look at Ventura like he's going to get the teacher because someone called him a name. That and he's trying to cash in, especially after the guy was murdered. Truth or not, let it roll off your back. Ventura was a fucking jackass lunatic before anyone ever said they punched him in the face. And after this whole thing, it will just ad fuel to the already big fire that is hatred for Ventura.

[cyclonescott]

Jesse offered to settle out of court if Kyle agreed to admit he lied about the incident and pay for Ventura’s lawyer bills. Kyle refused.

In March, U.S. District Judge Richard Kyle said the case could go forward because Ventura had offered sufficient evidence that could lead a jury to conclude Kyle's statements were false

[jw33]

Calling someone a name or names is one thing. Putting words into their mouth and then alleging you punched them out is a bit more serious. Add in the fact that the story was used to promote a book, I can't blame him much for trying to clear his name.

[helosailor]

May Jesse Ventura be buried alive by 180,000,000 pennies.

[jasone]

If Kyle lied about the story then it's his fault his widow lost the money. If the story was true then Ventura is a scumbag.

[Nash B.]

My issue is that they had 11 witnesses that couldn't persuade 3 jurors that the incident happened the way it was written:

Defense attorney John Borger had told jurors in his own closing argument that the 11 witnesses presented by the defense "tell a compelling and consistent story" that backed Kyle's version.
...
Olsen said inconsistencies in testimony from defense witnesses about what happened the night of Oct. 12, 2006, were so serious that their stories couldn't be trusted. He also pointed out that people who were with Ventura that night testified that the alleged confrontation never happened. And he said Ventura would never have said any of the remarks attributed to him because he remains proud of his and his parents' military service.

Obviously I wasn't there, but there had to have been some holes in the defense for it to go the way it did.

[Binky]

Remember, they weren't judging on that it happened - they were deciding on if Kyle defamed Ventura.

He wasn't named in the book, but Kyle decided to "out" him during promotional stops and stoke the media fires that generated a lot of press that wouldn't have happened otherwise.

Obviously, they determined he did defame Ventura out of malice or for a financial reason(selling books), and the estate is paying nearly 2 million in damages because of it.

[Probie]

If Kyle lied about the story then it's his fault his widow lost the money. If the story was true then Ventura is a scumbag.

True or not, you don't continue to sue a mans's fucking family after he is killed. At that point it's not about defamation of character, it's a personal vendetta or a cheap grab at some cash.

[jluv]

Fox 4 just said that the widow and family don't have to pay. It's the publisher (well, the publisher's insurance company) that will pay. If that is true...

And if all this below is true...

The suit was filed in 2012 about a year before Kyle was killed. What I don't understand is in a bar full of SEALs along with a former Governor how was there not another SEAL or some kind of witness the defense could get to testify under oath about what exactly went down? It's not like a this happened on the moon and no one was around.

Jesse offered to settle out of court if Kyle agreed to admit he lied about the incident and pay for Ventura’s lawyer bills. Kyle refused.

In March, U.S. District Judge Richard Kyle said the case could go forward because Ventura had offered sufficient evidence that could lead a jury to conclude Kyle's statements were false

Then I feel pretty much like this:

Calling someone a name or names is one thing. Putting words into their mouth and then alleging you punched them out is a bit more serious. Add in the fact that the story was used to promote a book, I can't blame him much for trying to clear his name.

Obviously, the spin around here is "A loudmouth has been is trying to get paid by suing a widow of a perfect Navy Seal", but there seems to be more to it.

[mardyn]

I thought Ventura (and lawyers) were seeking $15-16 million$ in their claim against Kyle's estate... seems 1.8 million might be a good trade off for all the publicity generated.

Ventura is still a " has been scumbag" no matter the outcome.

mardyn

[jw33]

Yowza...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/30/the-complicated-but-unveriable-legacy-of-chris-kyle-the-deadliest-sniper-in-american-history/?tid=hp_mm

Chris Kyle, musclebound, grim-faced and lethal, liked to tell stories.

Before his murder in 2013 at 38, the so-called deadliest sniper in American history nurtured a comic book narrative. He was the “true American badass,” as one journalist called him, who dipped, wore big boots and affected an aw-shucks Texas swagger. With 160 confirmed kills under his belt and a beautiful family behind him, he became the stuff of military legend. He wrote a best-selling book. Statues were erected. Millions made.

And then there were his stories — some of which smelled fishy. “There were a lot of things he told people that are really unverifiable,” journalist Michael J. Mooney, who wrote a book on Kyle, told The Washington Post.

Like the one about how he and a bud went down to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina and picked off dozens of bad guys. Or the one in which he took on two armed Texans bent on stealing his truck and shot them both dead. Or the one he told about former Minnesota governor Jesse “The Body” Ventura.

It’s a story that Ventura said was false. A Minnesota jury, which on Tuesday awarded Ventura $1.8 million in damages from Kyle’s estate after deliberating for six days, agreed.

The details of the defamatory story: Kyle punched Ventura out at a bar in 2006 after Ventura criticized the Iraq War and said the SEALs “deserve to lose a few.”

In the book, he didn’t mention Ventura by name — he referred to a “Scruff Face.”

“Scruff bowed up again,” Kyle claimed in “American Sniper.” “This time he swung. Being level-headed and calm can last only so long. I laid him out. Tables flew. Stuff happened. Scruff Face ended up on the floor. I left. Quickly. I have no way of knowing for sure, but rumor has it he showed up at [a SEAL] graduation with a black eye.”

He identified “Mr. Scruff Face” as Ventura in a later interview with Bill O’Reilly on Fox News and in an additional radio segment. “He told us we were killing innocent people over there, men, women, children, that we were all murderers,” Kyle, wearing a Punisher baseball hat, told a Sirius XM talk show. He added: “Then he said we deserved to lose a few guys. … I punched him in the face. Jesse Ventura, he’s an older guy. … He went down … He fell out of his wheelchair.”

After the verdict, Ventura expressed a mixture of satisfaction and remorse in an interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “I am overjoyed that my reputation was restored,” said the former wrestler, who served in an earlier iteration of the Navy SEALs in the 1970s. “But the emotion is [about] what’s been taken from me. I can’t go to … SEAL reunions anymore because that was the place I always felt safe and who will be next to throw me under the bus? I’d have to spend my time looking over my shoulder.”

Kyle was an exceptional soldier — a man others simply referred to as “The Legend.” But the verdict laid bare a separate side of him: his bravado.

His writing is drenched in braggadocio. “People ask me all the time, ‘How many people have you killed?’” he wrote in “American Sniper.” “My standard response is, ‘Does the answer make me less, or more, of a man? The number is not important to me. I only wish I had killed more. … The Navy credits me with more kills as a sniper than any other American service member, past or present. I guess that’s true.”

What was less sure, however, were some of the anecdotes he told after he left the SEALs in 2009 and returned to Texas. “After his incredible military career, he felt such high pressure to maintain his image,” Mooney told The Post. One way he did this was bar fights, pinning it on “pent-up aggression.” He told a story in his book of one time he and a pal pummeled a few “wannabe UFC fighters” in a bar.

“I would rather get my ass beat than look like a p—y in front of my boys,” he wrote.

That sense of superhuman toughness perhaps led him to tell stories reporters couldn’t confirm. One involved a cold January morning at a gas station southwest of Dallas. Two armed men, he said, approached him and told him to hand over the keys to his black F350. “I told them I would get them the keys,” he told Mooney. “I told them they were in the truck and to just let me reach in.” Kyle then claimed he reached into the car, pulled out a gun and, shooting under his armpit, killed both men. “It’s true,” he said.

But was it? Reporters, including the New Yorker’s Nicholas Schmidle, called some of the nearby county sheriffs and none of them knew of it. “I went to every single gas station [nearby],” Mooney explained. “I talked to every single law enforcement out there, all the Texas rangers — and there’s no evidence whatsoever.”

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram had no better luck. “We checked with the medical examiner’s office, which reported no such deaths in Cleburne in January 2009.”

Years after those alleged killings, Kyle had another story to tell. This one referred to the vacuum of authority in New Orleans following Katrina, when the city slipped into chaos. According to the New Yorker and several military publications, Kyle and a few other SEALs drank late in San Diego late one night in early 2012. “The SEALs began telling stories, and Kyle offered a shocking one,” the New Yorker reported. “…He and another sniper traveled to New Orleans, set up on top of the Superdome, and proceed to shoot dozens of armed residents who were contributing to the chaos.” The magazine said one conversation participant said Kyle “claimed to have shot thirty men on his own,” while another said Kyle and the other killed 30 between them.

When the New Yorker’s Schmidle called the U.S. Special Operations Command for confirmation, he didn’t get any. Then one of Kyle’s officers told the reporter, “I never heard that story.”

Does that mean it didn’t happen? Who knows. It’s certainly possible that Kyle killed two Texan thieves and their bodies disappeared. And it’s also possible Kyle killed 30 armed assailants in New Orleans to protect its residents in Katrina’s aftermath. But it’s also possible Kyle couldn’t let go of his own legend, and, in a haze of post-traumatic stress, let his tales veer into untruth.

Even now, more than a year after Kyle was killed by a fellow veteran at a Texas shooting range, the most important aspect of his myth remains unclear. His book says the Pentagon confirmed he killed 160 in Iraq.

Kyle, for his part, claimed he killed 255.

[otrtruckpro]

You have to respect the Jury. They were there for weeks and heard the evidence.

[Sgt Beavis]

True or not, you don't continue to sue a mans's fucking family after he is killed. At that point it's not about defamation of character, it's a personal vendetta or a cheap grab at some cash.

Yes and no.. I'm no fan of Ventura's but if the statements damage your reputation, then yes, you continue the case to help restore that reputation. Reputation matters a lot in the circles Ventura and Kyle walk in. I can see how this really would damage a persons rep. At least Ventura can now say to other Seals that the story was BS and couldn't stand up in court.

However, I agree it is a money grab. With Kyle alive, it would be a good way to stick it to him but now the man is dead. The jury obviously didn't believe Ventura took anywhere near the financial hit he claimed.

[lincolnboy]

Fucking old man.