MIAMI-DADE – Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful Jeff Greene lost the Florida primary and has now filed a defamation suit against two newspapers, alleging their coverage damaged his reputation.
Greene is suing The Miami Herald and the St. Petersburg Times for $500 million in damages, alleging that two stories were “knowingly based on false information,” according to the complaint filed Sept. 1. The stories were written and edited by Times staffers but also published in The Herald.
The first story looked at Greene’s real estate dealings in California. The second story addressed boxer Mike Tyson’s ties to Greene and Tyson’s admission of using drugs on a yacht. A correction was run by both papers in which Tyson clarified the drug use did not occur on Greene’s yacht. Tyson was the best man in Greene’s 2007 wedding.
Greene, who is represented by Atlanta attorney L. Lin Wood, filed the defamation suit in Miami-Dade circuit court. “It’s very unfortunate,” Greene told The Herald in a phone interview. “I was ahead 15 percent and when the stories ran, I was down 10 percent. It just snowballed after that.”
Times Editor Neil Brown denied the suit’s allegations. “Democracy won’t work if we let lawsuits full of baseless charges from a political candidate inhibit us from providing voters with the independent information that they need and rely on,” Brown said.
Source: The Miami Herald
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