Police Officer's Libel Case Against Newsweek May Proceed

From Wolinski v. Newsweek Digital, LLC, decided yesterday by Judge Jeremy Daniel (N.D. Ill.):

According to the amended complaint, in February 2019, Plaintiff Alex Wolinski, a sergeant in the Chicago Police Department, supervised a tactical team of twelve Chicago Police Department officers in the execution of a search warrant at the home of Ms. Anjanette Young. Upon entering her home, the officers encountered Ms. Young, naked, and handcuffed her. One of the officers covered Ms. Young's naked body with a large blanket that was located in her home.

It was ultimately determined that neither Ms. Young nor her residence had any connection to the target of the search warrant. The incident, which was captured on video by the officers' body-worn cameras ("BWC"), led to a Civilian Office of Police Accountability ("COPA") investigation and a lawsuit between Ms. Young and the City of Chicago.

In January 2022, Defendant Newsweek Digital, LLC published an article regarding the search and the resulting settlement that Ms. Young received from the City. In the article, Newsweek cited COPA's recommendation that Wolinski be suspended for a year with the possibility of "separation from the department." The article also purported to describe the BWC footage of the incident, stating:

Body camera footage from that night shows police breaking down Young's door while she was in the middle of undressing. She is seen handcuffed naked for about 17 minutes and is heard repeatedly telling officers they were at the wrong address.

Wolinski filed the instant defamation suit against Newsweek for statements made in the above publication. Wolinski alleges that the statement that Ms. Young was "seen handcuffed naked for about 17 minutes" is a substantial deviation from what is actually portrayed in the officers' BWC footage and gives rise to the inference that he lacked integrity in performing his duties as a police officer and consciously disregarded Ms. Young's dignity….

Newsweek first argues that Wolinski's claim is barred under the fair report privilege because the challenged statement fairly summarizes COPA's Summary Report of Investigation ("COPA Report") and the claims made in Ms. Young's civil lawsuit. The fair report privilege provides that a defamatory statement is not actionable under Illinois law if the statement is a "complete and accurate or fair abridgement of [an] official proceeding." The benchmark of the privilege is "the accuracy of the summary"—not the truth or falsity of the information being summarized—as "the report is the public's window to the proceeding." …

Here, the FAC [First Amended Complaint] plainly challenges the accuracy of Newsweek's summary of the BWC footage that was reviewed as part of the COPA investigation. Even assuming the COPA report's summary of the BWC footage constitutes an "official proceeding" for purposes of the fair report privilege, the Court cannot, at this stage, conclude as a matter of law that the fair report privilege applies….

Newsweek also argues that Wolinski's claim should be dismissed because the challenged statement is "substantially true" given the events as they are depicted on the BWC footage. Under Illinois law, a defamation claim fails if "the statement, although not technically true in every respect, was substantially true." To establish substantial truth, a defendant need only show "the truth of the 'gist' or 'sting' of the defamatory material." The "gist" or "sting" goes to the "heart of the matter in question," in other words, "the hurtfulness of the utterance." Typically, the determination of substantial truth is a question for the jury; however, "the question is one of law where no reasonable jury could find that substantial truth had not been established." …

Here, the "gist" of Newsweek's statement was that Wolinski disregarded Ms. Young's dignity when he compelled Ms. Young to stand handcuffed and naked during the officers' execution of the search. Wolinski challenges the statement on grounds that Ms. Young was not "seen naked" as the article states; rather, she was provided a blanket to cover herself within seconds of the officers' entry into her home. Because it is plausible that a reasonable jury could disagree as to the "sting" of this statement on Wolinski's integrity as a police officer, the Court declines to dismiss the defamation claim on grounds of substantial truth.

Comments

[John F. Carr]

On a motion to dismiss the court is required to accept the allegations of "seconds" of nudity instead of "17 minutes" as reported. The video and Civilian Office of Police Accountability are not in the record on a motion to dismiss. As the judge writes, "Wolinski has not pled himself out of court."

She may have been naked but covered in a blanket.

[Kleppe]

"She may have been naked but covered in a blanket."

I'm naked but covered in clothes.

[John F. Carr]

For the older readers: "You want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing."

[ah....Clem]

Well, we're all naked under our clothes, so if that's the best the defense has to offer they should settle now.

Agree that this seems to turn on a factual determination so denying the motion to dismiss seems correct.

[John F. Carr]

A blanket is not considered a good substitute for clothing. If asked whether you sleep naked you probably don't count the sheet over your body when answering.

Whether she had a clothes, a blanket, or nothing at all has not been determined.

[Life of Brian]

A blanket is not considered a good substitute for clothing. If asked whether you sleep naked you probably don’t count the sheet over your body when answering.

Agree with that as far as it goes, but that seems a bit different than the construct here. Saying "I saw you sleeping naked for 17 minutes" strikes me as a much clearer implication that there was no covering at all for the duration.

[Magister]

There doesn't seem to be much dispute about the lack of clothes, which apparently prompted giving her a blanket.

[F.D. Wolf]

How is New York Times v. Sullivan not mentioned a single time? Whatever happened to vigorous reporting on government officials requiring toleration of the occasional falsehood? Anyway, good luck getting a Chicago jury on your side, officer.

[SimonP]

Surprised this wasn't a Trump judge.

It seems odd to let a defamation claim proceed on a statement that isn't challenged as factually incorrect in itself but rather is insufficiently corroborated by body cam footage and suggests an inference that the defendant finds defamatory. But I'm not an expert, so I don't know how typical that is.

[John F. Carr]

The allegedly defamatory article:

Anjanette Young, the Chicago woman who was strip-searched and handcuffed naked during a botched police raid, received a $2.9 million settlement from the city last month, but she said she would have rather seen the firing of the officers involved than have received a single dime.
[...]
Body camera footage from that night shows police breaking down Young's door while she was in the middle of undressing. She is seen handcuffed naked for about 17 minutes and is heard repeatedly telling officers they were at the wrong address.
[...]
"The fact that I continued to ask if I could get dressed, I continued to ask them if I could call someone—what stands out to me most is that I was invisible to them because no one either responded to me saying, 'Yes you can get dressed later' or 'Let us finish this,' They just totally ignored me," Young told King.
[...]

It seems like they found her undressing and finished the job. If lying about Blankenship's criminal record is not actionable, the number of minutes of nudity may not be either as long as the rest of the story is subtantially true.

[Aubrey LaVentana]

What I consider the real problem:

A dynamic entry on the wrong address. What was the offense that justified dynamic entry in the first place? Was that offense of such great imminence that the tactical team hadn't the time to verify the address?

Dynamic entry is overused and apparently suffers no limits to its application. Fourth Amendment, anyone?

[Longtobefree]

Addresses involve numbers.
Math is racist.
Therefore DEI prohibits checking addresses.
QED

[Nige]

The beauty of 'everything is the fault of DEI' is that it lets actual bad actors off the hook.

[Noscitur a sociis]

It is perhaps worth noting (or perhaps not, since you're just shitposting) that they didn't search the wrong address in the sense that they intended to search 213 Main Street and accidentally searched 231 instead. Rather, the information identified the residence that got searched as the place they wanted to search: that information was just wrong.

[Noscitur a sociis]

According to earlier media coverage:

The raid was approved by a lawyer from the office of Cook County State’s Attorney Office Kim Foxx and by a Cook County judge, based on sworn testimony of an informant brought to them by Chicago police officers.

Police broke open Young’s door expecting to find a felon armed with a handgun. Instead, they found only Young, a nurse just home from work who was naked and appeared distraught as officers swarmed into her home.

One officer handcuffed and covered her, though her front was still exposed, and another brought her a blanket within about a minute. She was covered or partially covered for 12 minutes until an officer brought her to the bathroom to get dressed.

A spokesperson for the Chicago Police Department declined to answer questions about the informant or what was done to corroborate the information. A search warrant, made public in Young’s civil rights lawsuit, noted the informant pointed out the door of Young’s home and swore they’d seen the target of the warrant with a handgun and ammunition inside the apartment within the last 48 hours.

.

[bernard11]

Maybe they shouldn't rely on that informant in the future.

[John F. Carr]

One of the Boston cases I mention in the post below had an informant who didn't really exist. A lawyer convinced a judge that police needed to disclose more information about the informant and that's when everything really blew up.

The other involved a transposition error in the address. They wanted a drug dealer but busted down the door of his neighbor.

[John F. Carr]

At least nobody died in this case, unlike some other raids on innocent people.

Two incidents in Boston. Around 1990 police lied to get a search warrant. This was probably not unusual. What was unusual was a police officer was killed as a result. It was embarrassing enough that charges were filed against police. If I recall correctly one of them went to prison. The guy who police suspected of firing the fatal bullet got a beating and deportation. In 1994 Boston police raided the wrong address. Finding a man instead of a half-naked woman they tackled him. He died of a heart attack. His family got a city record $1 million settlement. The record only lasted a few years. A wrongful death in 2004 led to a $5 million settlement.

[David Nieporent]

I was going to say that I remember reading about this story recently and the facts were terrible, but not quite what was reported above. Except that I checked, and it's actually a different story with almost identical facts: cops break into the wrong apartment where only a naked woman was present, and wouldn't let her get dressed.

The worst part about this particular story is that the cops did like negative research before executing the warrant. They didn't just fail to verify the facts — the person they were looking for actually lived next door — but actively refused to see facts that existed: the person they were actually looking for had on an electronic monitoring bracelet.

The cop who's suing Newsweek was fired as a result of his acts. (The board that voted to fire him was split; the dissenters argued that he shouldn't have been fired because he was merely incompetent rather than corrupt.) Of course, the cops and the city covered up the incident as long as they possibly could.