Jury Reaches CRUSHING VERDICT Against Trump Blogger
by Michael Popok
MeidasTouch
Jun 2, 2024
As a precursor to the Trump jury deliberations, a jury has just ruled against a MAGA blogger and alt-riot supporter who falsely claimed that a drag performer had exposed himself to children during a Pride Day performance, and posted a fake video allegedly showing the plaintiff’s private parts exposed. Michael Popok walks through the jury’s $1.1 million dollar defamation and punitive damages verdict against blogger and Trumper Summer Bushnell, and explains why this ruling may spell trouble for Trump in New York.
Transcript
this is Michael popok legal AF we got
another jury in Idaho who has ruled in a
defamation case against a right-wing
blogger of something called The Bushnell
report summer Bushnell of Idaho who
published a fake video of a drag
performer who was performing during a
pride event in June 2022 that was about
to be set upon by the uh um Patriot
front group of white supremacist who
were going to go break up that Pride
event and attacked innocent peaceful
people supporting lgbtq rights there was
a performance by this particular
plaintiff in the case Eric posy who's a
drag performer and instead summer
Bushnell took a video that she obtained
from somebody that had recorded it and
blurred out the front of the performer's
outfit and claimed that he was exposing
fully full frontal genitalia exposure in
front of children in the park to make
whatever sick depraved Point she was
trying to make the only problem was it
was a lie and she uh she created that it
wasn't even a deep fake she created it
by putting some blurry area on the
person on Eric uh Eric Posey's uh lower
region and then claim that it was his
his uh his uh you know his personal
private parts they were being exposed
the children now what she was supposed
to be reporting on allegedly in the
quote unquote Bush Nell report is about
the Patriot front which she supports
apparently based on other things that
she's published in that in that uh
right-wing blog and that the Patriot
front was
busted uh before they could actually go
into the park and start doing whatever
violence or Riot that they planned on
doing if you recall they were busted
coming out of a van when a couple of
cops happened upon them as they were
putting on their white masks and their
little blue baseball caps and their
little polo shirts and khakis you know
dressed like some sort of Brooks
Brothers right-wing supremacist group
this is the same group that marched in
Charlottesville and uh which led to the
death of of people people that uses Nazi
sloganeering you know to go after people
of color and dis and and those that are
disenfranchised so summer Bushell was
was reporting about the 31 people of the
Patriot front that were busted and and
then charged and convicted of conspiracy
to Riot taking those people off the
street and decided I guess for good
measure to get back at and do her own
bit of bashing of the pride parade in
the park that day decided to pull out
out of thin air Eric Posey and accuse
him of being a pedophile and accused him
of being a child molester and that he
was showing and flashing himself in an
obscene gesture to the children in the
park all that was untrue and so in 2022
Eric posie sued summer Bushnell and that
video was in front of the jury as was
the testimony of Summer Bushnell and the
jury was so incensed by what they heard
and what they saw especially when the uh
lawyers for Eric posie told the jury
that as late as
Friday right and they just returned the
verdict on Friday over Saturday that as
late as Friday summer Bushnell was still
showing the video on her blog and on her
Facebook and on her social media the one
that that look like Eric posie was
flashing
children it was still up during the
trial that just shows you how completely
deranged and completely unored from
ethics morality or or are planet Earth
the right-wing Maga are they think they
can get away with anything because
they're watching their cult leader you
know try to obstruct Justice in four
different
cases and so the jury listen to this
talk about farad impartial the jury went
back to the judge judge um uh judge
Peterson and said we have a they wrote a
note they said we we wanted besides
money and they awarded 1.1
million including punitive damages to
Eric posie I mean look uh summer
Bushnell made it easy she was continuing
to post the
video uh all the way through the trial
the jury said to the judge we want uh we
we want to know if we have the power to
do two things as a jury we want to order
Bushnell to take down the video
immediately from her social media like
they wanted to issue an injunction which
only judges can do and secondly we want
to order that Bushnell apologize to Eric
posie publicly and the judge say you
can't do that you you you don't have
that power you can however put those
thoughts and sentiments into your jury
verdict for money I mean that's the
that's the sad reality of of Trials
that's why I tell my clients in trial
practice you may not get the justice
that you're looking for because this is
a binary process you're e you either win
or you lose and it's about money in
civil cases generally if you want an
injunction a temporary restraining order
that's Equitable relief you need to get
from a judge and you normally do that at
the top of the case now frankly if I
were the lawyer's proposi I probably
would have brought at least during the
course of the trial an injunction
hearing motion a motion for an
injunction hearing and have the judge do
exactly that have her order that person
to take down those postings can't order
an apology but you can do this other
stuff so that's that's a strategic or
tactical issue that the lawyers um now
I've looked at this uh Bushnell report
in social media it looks like it's down
as of this hot take but listen I'll send
the audience here they're very good at
sleuthing go find go find out and make
sure summer Bushnell's social media
doesn't continue to
defame um and violently attack if you
will Eric posy by claiming that he is a
pedophile and a sex offender and that
he's flashing children with his uh
personal his private parts let's do that
and if you see it you can report to the
mest touch Network and let us know and
we'll get to the bottom of it and we'll
bring it to the attention of the
appropriate authorities and they were so
into the case and so invested in the
case that they actually posed for
pictures with Eric posie and hugged him
some of the jurors at the end of the
trial after they were dismissed from
being jurors uh they didn't do that to
Summer Bushnell I assure
you and so as I've said before jurors
may start out being in the case of a
criminal trial in New York 15
individuals that didn't know each other
but by Serendipity have been lashed
together as a jury but it becomes a
living breathing organism there's an
organogram about how things happen
within a jury in the thought process of
a jury and what moves them and how
protective they become and how they bind
and bond together I know there's some
speculation that they're not binding
they're not bonding I assure you they
are they're spending plenty of time
together at breaks at lunch at bathroom
it's not like they're sitting in little
in little hermetically sealed capsules
or tubes they're sitting together like
human beings they're kibitzing not about
the trial not about about that but
they're kibing about other things in
their life they're New
Yorkers that's what New Yorkers do you
can't put 15 New Yorkers together in any
context and not expect some sort of
human interaction and bonding it just
wouldn't happen 15 random people in a
row at a sporting event right are going
to somehow Bond over having to pass the
beer from one end to the other or who
got the cotton candy who got the pretzel
you know here's the 20 can you pass it
down that's New Yorkers not just New
Yorkers it's a lot of different places
but I but but since I I practice there
and I'm from there I wanted to talk
about that in particular they are
binding bonding just like the Idaho jury
bonded around Justice for Eric posy and
against right-wing Maga uh uh bloggers
like summer Bushnell who who uh now
we're going to have to pay the price I
mean based on what I looked at on her
Bushnell report I doubt she's got two
pennies to rub together you know whereas
my as my mother used to say she doesn't
have a pot to piss in or a window to
throw it out of but somehow she's going
to have to come up with a woman .1
million and she better hope she doesn't
own a house because if she does Eric POS
is going to own that house and we'll
continue to follow Eric posie collecting
on that judgment and the likely
bankruptcy of of Summer
Bushnell uh on right here on the MeidasTouch network.
*****************************
Idaho drag performer awarded $1.1 million in defamation suit against blogger: A blogger posted a doctored video of Eric Posey on Facebook in 2022 and falsely claimed he exposed his genitals to a crowd that included children.
by Matt Lavietes
MBC News
May 28, 2024, 2:00 PM MDT
https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-new ... rcna154287
An Idaho drag performer received more than a $1 million in damages in a defamation suit against a blogger who falsely claimed the performer exposed himself to a crowd that included children, according to an attorney for the performer.
A jury on Friday ruled that Summer Bushnell defamed Eric Posey by posting on Facebook a doctored video of Posey performing at a Pride event in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, in 2022, and falsely telling her followers that Posey flashed his genitals, according to the attorney, Wendy J. Olson.
The jury awarded Posey $926,000 in compensatory damages for defamation and an additional $250,000 for punitive damages, which were based on the argument that Bushnell knew her claims were false when she made them, Olson said.
"Mr. Posey's life was forever changed when Summer Bushnell falsely accused him of a crime," Olson said in a statement. "The jury's unanimous verdict and its award of $1.176 million in damages sends the clear message that truth matters, that facts matter and that you can't dehumanize and damage someone to suit your own purposes."
An attorney for Bushnell did not immediately return a request for comment.
Posey, whose stage name is Mona Liza Million, sued Bushnell — who runs a local blog, "The Bushnell Report" — for defamation in September 2022, seeking damages that exceeded $10,000 and attorneys’ fees.
The lawsuit stemmed from a performance Posey gave at the Coeur d’Alene Pride event, called Pride in the Park, on June 11, 2022.
A day after the performance, Bushnell posted a doctored video of Posey dancing on stage to her blog's Facebook account, according to the complaint. The video blurred out the area around Bushnell's genitals and included false statements that Posey exposed himself, according to a screenshot of the video in the suit.
“Can this guy be arrested for exposing his genitals to minors?” Bushnell asked her followers in comments attached to the video, [/size][/u][/b]according to the suit.
Posey never removed any articles of clothing throughout his three performances that day, the complaint states. He was wearing a leotard, black shorts, underwear and tights, in addition to a metallic silver boa wrapped around his waist, it adds.
Bushnell also suggested people should report Posey to the police and the state’s attorney general at the time, and included their contact information in one of her posts, according to the suit.
A spokesperson for the Coeur d’Alene Police Department confirmed with NBC News that the department received calls from people reporting Posey in 2022, but not from anyone who attended the performance. The spokesperson added that the department referred the unedited version of the video to a local prosecutor's office, which found no evidence of indecent exposure.
Posey's attorneys contended that Bushnell posted the doctored video to boost her own profile, noting that the video was viewed more than 19,000 times, compared with her other videos, which garnered 235 to 1,400 views, according to the suit.
The lawyers also argued that Bushnell was looking to capitalize off the national media attention on a series of unrelated arrests that took place near the 2022 Pride event.
Thirty-one people wearing masks and holding shields were arrested near the event on suspicion of conspiracy to riot, which Bushnell referenced throughout her series of posts, according to the suit. (Five of the 31 suspects, who were affiliated with the white nationalist group Patriot Front, were convicted on misdemeanor charges in July 2023.)
Posey's attorneys said in the suit that their client lost professional opportunities and suffered damage to his reputation in the aftermath of Bushnell’s posts.
Olson said in a phone call that Posey, who is Black, also received violent threats in person and online, and has been called racial slurs as a result of Bushnell's false claims.
"The most important thing is that this allows him to re-enter public life, so to speak," Olson said, referring to the jury's verdict. "He can go about his life as he had before without being in hiding."