It’s ‘Gawker 2.0’
Defame att’y now sues Gizmodo site
The lawyer who brought down Gawker is now going after the shuttered gossip Web site’s successor company Gizmodo Media Group.
Attorney Charles Harder filed a $10 million defamation suit against Gizmodo and writer Ryan Goldberg in Manhattan Supreme Court on Friday.
Harder says Goldberg defamed his client, the renowned sports bettor RJ Bell, in the June 23, 2016 article, “How America’s Favorite Sports Betting Expert Turned a Sucker’s Game into an Industry” published in Deadspin.
Deadspin is one of eight sites that make up Gizmodo Media Group.
Bell is the CEO of the sports betting company Pregame.com. The company offers expert advice to more amateur gamblers for a price.
The Deadspin story includes “fabricated” claims that Bell and Pregame engage in “deceptive and predatory business practices,” according to court papers.
Specifically, the story accuses Bell of profiting off gamblers’ losses — “a practice considered by many in the sports prediction industry to be particularly egregious,” the suit says.
Goldberg, a New York-based freelancer, spent a year reporting the article. “If you had bought and played all of Pregame’s picks since 2011, you’d be down $1,359,432,” Goldberg writes in the article. The figure is false, the suit says. Pregame “has earned an A-plus rating from the Better Business Bureau” and “is the exclusive odds provider for The Associated Press,” according to court papers.
Goldberg’s piece also accuses Bell, of Las Vegas, and Pregame of taking payments from sports books, which can be criminal.
The “false statements . . . have caused tremendous harm to plaintiffs’ personal and professional reputation, including the hardearned trust they have with their customers, the high standing they have with the media and their actual and potential economic interests,” the suit says.
Beside Goldberg’s unflattering article, Bell is largely respected in the press, the suit says. Forbes put him on its list of “Gambling Gurus” and USA Today dubbed him a “Las Vegas maven.”
He’s also appeared as a talking head on ESPN, CNN and CNBC.
While the article was published before Deadspin was sold, Univision refused to retract the story after the media conglomerate purchased the site.
A Univision spokesman declined to comment. Goldberg did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
Univision bought Gizmodo properties including Deadspin at a bankruptcy auction last summer after Hulk Hogan’s $140 million verdict over the publication of his sex tape forced Gawker to shutter.
Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel paid Harder to represent Hogan. Thiel reportedly wanted to put Gawker out of business after the site outed him as gay in 2007.