BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (Legal Newsline) – Cops who alleged BuzzFeed defamed them with an article about a University of Alabama student who claimed she was raped and then killed herself have lost their lawsuit after a federal judge ruled everything in the piece was true.
BuzzFeed’s 2017 article was the issue in a lawsuit filed by Adam Jones, a Tuscaloosa County Homicide Unit officer, and Joshua Hastings, a deputy sheriff in the Tuscaloosa Metro Homicide Unit.
The two were assigned to Megan Rondini’s claims she was raped by T.J. Bunn. Criminal charges weren’t filed, and Rondini committed suicide on Feb. 26, 2016.
Despite the lack of a criminal prosecution, Rondini’s father filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Bunn and was able to pursue his claims, thanks to a May 2021 state Supreme Court ruling. The two sides settled for a confidential amount after.
Meanwhile, Jones and Hastings pursued their case, filed in 2019, against BuzzFeed and journalist Katie Baker, but a March 15 ruling by Judge R. David Proctor said the alleged defamatory statements were true and no reasonable juror could find otherwise.
“Defendants could not have published the article with actual knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard for the truth,” Proctor wrote. “Nor have Plaintiffs proffered any evidence of common-law malice.
“They have not pointed to any evidence that Baker had any knowledge of Plaintiffs before investigating this story. Thus, a reasonable juror could not find that Defendants harbored previous ill-will against Plaintiffs.”
Rondini and Bunn met at a Tuscaloosa bar in 2015, while she was a student at Alabama. She alleges he drugged and raped her, and her detailed allegations were published in the BuzzFeed article.
Bunn said the sex was consensual, but Rondini was treated for post-traumatic stress disorder. She also suffered from anxiety and depression, and she transferred to Southern Methodist University in Dallas in 2016. An intake form at a health clinic there indicated suicide thoughts.
On the form, Rondini responded to a question about major changes and crises in her life with “Raped, bullied by police, changed university.” The form was found next to her bed.
Jones and Hastings cried defamation when Baker’s article was published. They objected to 11 aspects of the article, including:
-The original headline – “How Accusing a Powerful Man of Rape Drove a College Student to Suicide”;
-The article’s teaser – “When an Alabama college student told the police she was sexually assaulted, she did everything she thought she was supposed to do. She ended up killing herself”;
-A statement that investigators viewed Bunn “as the true victim”;
-A statement that Megan was questioned multiple times to build a case against her in order to get her to drop her rape charge and give up on her civil lawsuit against the investigators; and
-That they were portrayed in the article as creating a cover-up to protect Bunn.
“According to one of the Uniform Offense Reports, Rondini was suspected of criminal theft – taking money and a gun from Bunn’s vehicle – and in that report Bunn was actually labeled the victim,” Proctor wrote.
“Further, Jones questioned Rondini extensively about the possible theft and her firing of the gun. In fact, Jones later used the term ‘build a case’ in reference to logging her allegations against Bunn into the database.
“Additionally, Rondini’s attorney indicated to her father that the criminal charges against Rondini were mentioned to him – possibly to have him ‘cool [his] jets’ – after sending Bunn a demand letter regarding a potential civil suit. Bunn also said that he would not pursue the criminal charges against Rondini if she did not pursue him.”
Ultimately, Proctor found all 11 contested statements in the article to be true.
“In sum, Baker utilized Rondini’s tragic story to illustrate what she believes to be, and desires her audience to recognize as, a nationwide problem – not as a ‘sensationalized story’ of a cover-up directed by Plaintiffs,” he wrote.