Megan Thee Stallion secured a courtroom victory after a federal jury dominated blogger Milagro Gramz defamed her.
Megan Thee Stallion received a $75,000 judgment in a Miami federal courtroom after a jury discovered blogger Milagro Gramz answerable for defamation, emotional misery and distributing a digitally altered specific video with out the rapper’s consent.
The choice, delivered December 1 within the Southern District of Florida, capped off a contentious trial that scrutinized the boundaries of on-line commentary, notably in Hip-Hop media. Jurors concluded that Gramz, a social media character recognized for protecting high-profile rap circumstances, intentionally unfold false claims and dangerous content material about Megan Thee Stallion.
The jury awarded $15,000 for defamation per se, $8,000 for intentional infliction of emotional misery and $50,000 for selling an AI-generated pornographic video falsely depicting Megan. In addition they added $1,000 in punitive damages for every of the 2 claims, bringing the overall to $75,000.
The trial stemmed from Milagro Gramz’s on-line exercise throughout the Tory Lanez capturing case. She repeatedly accused Megan of mendacity below oath and pushed a manipulated video that falsely portrayed the rapper in a sexual act.
The jury decided these actions weren’t solely false however malicious.
Megan testified that the net harassment led her to spend $240,000 on remedy. Her authorized crew argued that Gramz’s marketing campaign price her important enterprise alternatives, together with a possible cope with Google, and broken her psychological well being and public picture.
Gramz’s protection claimed her content material was protected below the First Modification and argued Megan did not show precise malice or measurable reputational injury.
Nevertheless, the jury rejected that protection after listening to proof that Gramz deleted key WhatsApp and textual content messages, together with alleged conversations with Tory Lanez and his father, each accused of serving to gasoline the net assaults.
Whereas the jury’s verdict settles the damages, the decide should nonetheless resolve a procedural concern relating to whether or not Megan gave correct pre-suit discover of the defamation declare.
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