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Roy Moore sues Sacha Baron Cohen, Showtime, CBS in $95 million defamation case
Roy Moore sues Sacha Baron Cohen, Showtime, CBS in $95 million defamation case
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cbs-lawsuit-cohen-moore/roy-moore-sues-sacha-baron-cohen-showtime-cbs-in-95-million-defamation-case-idUSKCN1LL2P0
(Reuters) - Roy Moore, the former U.S. Senate candidate from Alabama, on Wednesday filed a $95 million defamation lawsuit against Sacha Baron Cohen, claiming he was duped into appearing on the British comedian’s Showtime series “Who Is America?” and falsely portrayed as a sex offender.
Moore, a Republican and former chief justice of Alabama’s Supreme Court, also sued Showtime and its parent CBS Corp (CBS.N) for defamation, and accused all three defendants of fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Baron Cohen’s representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A Showtime spokeswoman said the network does not comment on pending litigation.
The lawsuit arose from a July 29 broadcast where Baron Cohen, disguised as fictional Israeli anti-terrorism expert Erran Morad, interviewed Moore and demonstrated a supposed “pedophile detector” that beeped when waved near him.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cbs-lawsuit-cohen-moore/roy-moore-sues-sacha-baron-cohen-showtime-cbs-in-95-million-defamation-case-idUSKCN1LL2P0
(Reuters) - Roy Moore, the former U.S. Senate candidate from Alabama, on Wednesday filed a $95 million defamation lawsuit against Sacha Baron Cohen, claiming he was duped into appearing on the British comedian’s Showtime series “Who Is America?” and falsely portrayed as a sex offender.
Moore, a Republican and former chief justice of Alabama’s Supreme Court, also sued Showtime and its parent CBS Corp (CBS.N) for defamation, and accused all three defendants of fraud and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Baron Cohen’s representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A Showtime spokeswoman said the network does not comment on pending litigation.
The lawsuit arose from a July 29 broadcast where Baron Cohen, disguised as fictional Israeli anti-terrorism expert Erran Morad, interviewed Moore and demonstrated a supposed “pedophile detector” that beeped when waved near him.
11 replies
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he's got a very weak case.
first, he's a public figure, so the standards are very high.
second, moore already had a public image of someone who hit on much younger women, including reports of him getting banned from a mall for exactly that. to defame someone, you need to make their reputation worse than it already was.
third, cohen can argue that the "pedophile detector" was obviously a joke. he could easily argue that no one was convinced that a beeping wand could detect a pedophile.
fourth, if you listen to the dialog carefully, from what i recall, cohen was careful to never accuse moore of pedophilia. in fact, he kept saying that the "pedophile detector" must be malfunctioning. the message presented was that the machine was broken and that moore was *not* a pedophile. in order to believe that the machine was right, you'd have to have some independent reason to believe moore was a pedophile despite what cohen was saying.
fifth, he'd have to prove damages. i don't see how he can prove that *cohen* caused damages that weren't already well established by many other media outlets by the time the program aired.
very weak case, imho.
THE TRUTH!!!
So broke as a joke Moore wants to sue SBC because Cohen showed just how big of an ass he really is!!! That's rich!!
