LAS VEGAS (Legal Newsline) - The Associated Press was exercising its First Amendment rights to report on a decades-old rape allegation against casino mogul Steve Wynn even though the reporter told a colleague one of the complaints “is crazy,” the Nevada Supreme Court ruled, affirming the power of news organizations to end lawsuits under the state anti-SLAPP statute.
Wynn sued the AP after reporter Regina Garcia Cano obtained redacted complaints by a woman who claimed Wynn raped her in Chicago and she later gave birth to their child in a gas station bathroom. The allegations were included in a larger story about Wynn’s troubles following national reports alleging a pattern of misconduct, after which Wynn resigned as chief executive of Wynn Resorts and as finance chair of the Republican National Committee.
A trial judge dismissed the case on the basis of fair reporting but the Nevada Supreme Court reversed, instructing the lower court to evaluate under Nevada’s anti-SLAPP law, which allows news organizations to dismiss cases early if they are about matters of public concern.
Wynn argued the Chicago allegations were false and Garcia Cano knew it, texting a coworker that elements of the claim were “crazy.” A trial court also ruled the allegations were false and ordered the woman to pay Wynn $1 in damages.
The Nevada Supreme Court threw out Wynn’s complaint against the AP in a Feb. 8 decision.
“While the narrative contained in the complaint is unusual, it was not so unrealistic as to put AP Respondents on notice as to its falsity,” the court ruled.
“Calling the complaint `crazy’ is not clear and convincing evidence that Garcia Cano believed it to be false or that she recklessly disregarded whether it was true.”