The jury concluded that Gawker invaded Hogan’s privacy and caused him emotional distress by publishing a portion of a sex tape featuring Hogan and the then-wife of a friend.
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“He was joking about this tape”, Denton said of Hogan today on “Good Morning America”.
“If we were all in the same circumstance, how would we feel about it?” said Paula Eastman. He also said he does not think Bollea is credible when he says he did not know he was being recorded.
During brief closing arguments Monday, Hogan’s lawyer Kenneth Turkel said Gawker Media’s gross revenues in 2015 were $48.7 million and that founder Nick Denton has a total of $121 million, including a $3.6 million Manhattan condo.
He sued Gawker for invasion of privacy after it published the video in which he has sex with his friend’s wife online.
“They did something illegal”, Young claimed, referring to Gawker.
“There was something about the level of arrogance”, Young said of Denton. But Denton stands by his company’s decision to post the tape as a newsworthy story. “I blame myself because you’re at an all-time low, you have nobody”.
Denton said the judge refused to let the jury hear crucial information, including evidence that Hogan knew the bedroom was wired for video and that the wrestler’s real reason for suing was to prevent the public from learning of racial slurs he uttered on another tape.
“He [Daulerio] just comes out with this arrogance that ‘there’s nothing that can stop us from what we’re doing, ‘ the comments he made [that] it’s open game for a celebrity of 5 years old or older – those kind of bold statements, under oath, knowing that you’re going to trial over this”, O’Neill said. “It was in the context of a story, the story has been found newsworthy by a federal judge, by the appeals court on repeated occasions”.
“So we felt we needed to send a message”. “No stories would actually ever get written and we do put the story first, and I am unapologetic about that”, he said. “And what they do, and how they look at the world – which to me, is very, very scary”, he adds.
Juror Kevin Kennedy maintained that Hogan still had a right to privacy even if he knew he was being taped, which Hogan has repeatedly denied.
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Gawker plan to appeal the ruling and Denton has posted an article on his take of the trial and the jury’s decision, which he described as “extraordinary”.
