Posted on 08/01/2014 4:29:52 AM PDT by Kaslin
There were two things Jesse Ventura was never supposed to win: the 1998 Minnesota Governor’s race, and his just-ended trial seeking a big payday from a hero’s widow.
But he was indeed a one-term Governor of an actual state, and now he has prevailed in another improbable arena— a courtroom where he asserted that one of America’s most admired war heroes lied about him on purpose.
The $1.8 million dollar judgment from a ten-person jury voting 8-2 is a direct raid on the family budget of Chris Kyle’s widow Taya and their two children. The first half-million will be covered by insurance from the publisher of “American Sniper,” which contained the story that Ventura has now turned into a lottery ticket. The remaining $1.3 million goes straight from the Kyle family’s bank account into Ventura’s on the foggy premise of “unlawful enrichment,” a concept that says Kyle’s estate is enjoying dirty money because a sliver of the book struck a jury as intentionally malicious.
Ventura’s determination was not even slowed by the death last year of Kyle, whose repeated deployments and successful takedowns of terrorists had become the stuff of legend. He died from a gunshot wound in Texas, shot at a gun range helping a fellow soldier battling PTSD.
The resulting Ventura legal strategy: full speed ahead. The logic: Kyle’s death does not change the reputational damage to a man who had already done plenty to damage his own reputation with loudly expressed views like the complicity of the Bush administration in 9/11.
The average 9/11 truther is a harmless chowderhead. But Ventura’s wandering mind found a megaphone in his “Conspiracy Theory” TV show that logged three seasons on truTV, giving credibility to old foil-hat favorites like weather control and martial law internment camps. He is free to embrace any poppycock he likes, even publicly, but it is hard to argue that the Kyle book had stained a sterling reputation.
So if you are gathering that my starting block defines Chris Kyle as a hero and Jesse Ventura as a buffoon, you are correct.
But here’s the rub: none of that matters.
The jury’s job was to determine whether the Kyle book spun intentional lies about Ventura intended to damage him. That’s a very high bar, but it is wholly separate from what anyone thinks of the parties involved.
So the testimony began almost a month ago. Kyle’s side offered testimony that Ventura, unidentified in “American Sniper” but named in book tour interviews, demeaned Navy SEALs at an actual wake for one of their fallen ranks in 2006. Kyle’s story is that he could not let this go, confronted Ventura and decked him.
Navy SEAL testimony should be a compelling thing. Drunk Navy SEAL testimony loses a little of its impact, though, and many of the evening’s accounts drip with high blood alcohol levels.
For Ventura’s part, he does not mind so much a story of losing a bar fight. The engine of his quest is to defuse the account that he spoke ill of Navy SEALs, whose number he once occupied. The Kyle book places in Ventura’s mouth a quote that they “deserve to lose a few.” I can imagine Jesse Ventura saying a wide variety of incendiary, baseless and just plain stupid things. But even as an avowed non-fan, I have to say it’s hard to imagine those words coming out of his gravelly mouth.
So is that what led the jury to hand him a pile of Kyle family money?
If it is, I am still bewildered. The jury did not find that Kyle’s story seemed a little suspect, or that they think Ventura might have a reason for taking offense. They found that Chris Kyle absolutely made up this story on purpose with the specific intent of defaming him.
I scoured each day of trial stories and spoke to two reporters who covered it from start to finish. I find no compelling evidence that a case was made for a concrete finding that Chris Kyle sat at a keyboard and plotted to destroy what is left of Ventura’s image.
This was a trial filled with “I don’t know.” At least that’s my personal bottom line. I know I hope Chris Kyle, whose memorial service I proudly attended, did not have such a vicious streak. But I don’t know.
But nor could the jury know that Kyle did in fact act so maliciously. In the face of such uncertainty, there is only one decision, and that is against Ventura— not because they think he is lying, but because the burden of proof of Kyle’s malfeasance was not met.
After the jury struggled through a week of deadlock, both legal teams agreed to let an 8-2 margin settle the case. Ventura’s side was even willing to settle for 6-4. There were indeed two people on the panel unwilling to say yes, we believe Kyle sought to bring Ventura down with punishable lies.
Taya Kyle’s attorneys’ decision to accept an 8-2 conclusion looks profoundly dumb in hindsight. This would have been a mistrial, and even Ventura probably would have balked at reviving an expensive monster he was paying the full fare for. No contingency fee arrangement here.
But what’s done is done. Ventura can say his name has been cleared, but I don’t have faith in the eight jurors who were sufficiently swayed to deliver his big payday.
If he is so concerned about his image, he should have considered the unseemly sight of a man dragging a grieving widow into court. Twitter did not exactly explode with congratulations for him when his victory was announced.
But to the extent that he says Kyle’s death does not change the basis for his complaint, he is correct. He had every right to pursue the matter, and I wonder in some future case if it is the hero suing the scoundrel for defamation, if we would not support pressing forward if the scoundrel were to meet an untimely end.
So, to Jesse Ventura, a suggestion: Keep the half-mil that is the award for being wronged in the pages of “American Sniper.” But refuse to take the rest. Harper Collins is editing out the offending story, which was never more than a few pennies’ worth of the book’s cover price. Taya Kyle and her children have never done you a speck of harm. Allowing them to benefit from the proceeds of a fallen husband and father’s work, which is largely a gesture of love from a grateful nation, would give you a moment of public approval that would far exceed any image boost from this courtroom victory.
If it is your reputation you care about, you are entitled to say for the rest of your life that a jury found for you. And in returning the Kyle family’s money, it can then be said that you responded to a slight not with revenge but with kindness and generosity. There are few better image-enhancers than that.
Bush made a lot of bad appointments….most of them in fact.
And none of what you say changes the fact that this did not impact Ventura one bit, and it’s despicable to sue this family under these circumstances. The very fact that Ventura sued demonstrates it was all about the money to him, because all of this attention to the book, not to mention how loathsome of a creature Jesse is, will hurt his reputation a thousand times more than whatever was said in the book.
Then again, he may not be smart enough to figure that out. Are you?
The way I understood the money is being paid from the account of the publisher of the book. That said. I hope Jesse Ventura rots in hell, for what he did to Chris Kyle’s widow
$500,000 is being paid by the insurance company. The rest comes straight out of the wife’s money.
Ventura and his attorneys offered at several points to drop the suit if Kyle and his publisher and later Kyle’s widow and the publisher would acknowledge the story was true. Actually, he demanded was that the acknowledge that the words Kyle attributed to him were not true.
They refused. It cost them.
Does Ventura receive any money from future sales of the book or just monies earned so far? I don’t want that fat traitorous conspiracy nut-job getting any more money if I have anything to say about it.
(I’m going to have to stop watching “Predator” now too, when it comes on re-run. That’s a bummer)
It will be a Pyrrhic Victory for Jesse in the long run.
BTTT
you are a jesse groupie…..obviously…..what a pathetic hobby to have.
bye
I’m beginning to think that there is a special place in Hell for those who sit on a jury and award huge damages to not so innocent “victims”. Enough is enough already! If Ventura had ANY decency, he’d have dropped the charges, especially since Kyle was not able to defend his own remarks. The JUDGE should’ve thrown this one out, but methinks that these judges are in it with the jurors to make havoc of the judicial system and destroy America. That may seem brazen, but what else can one attribute it to? A real man would’ve either dropped the case or asked for no monetary compensation. What exactly did Ventura lose as a result of Kyle’s claim? REALLY. And he’d take the food out of the mouths of Kyle’s children? This is a real man? I could call him a couple other things if I was a foul-mouthed ranter, but I’ll have to stick to “fool” right now.
Nah, I barely followed the story until it the trial. I thought Jesse was just upset about some guy claiming he’d punched him out in a bar. Then I read what Kyle claimed he said, and then I started reading the Minneapolis paper’s account of the trial.
Maybe the jury got it wrong. But I know from what happened at the trial their decision wasn’t unreasonable. Kyle got caught in a number of false statements about Jesse and about the book.
OOOOO, you speak French! ;)
Minnesota has always attracted screwballs. Look at the “Wobblies” who continue to have influence in the state. They are Trotskyite lefties who make run-of-the-mill Socialists look like button-down conservatives.
Another OJ jury. Don’t know how you can say the book slandered JV when it didn’t name him and JV says that he wasn’t punched. If I was the judge, I’d move heaven and earth to nullify this garbage verdict.
And a victory here restores your reputation, Jesse? Congratulations, you’re now as popular as Taylor Chapman.
What a twit this Taylor Chapman is. She and Ventura are made for each other
He may not get much more then the Ins. because of exemptions.
.....lol, and you ever try getting litigation dollars out of an insurance company. Jesse will be lucky to get his lawyer paid. Like I said, “it ain’t over yet” and I know quite a lot more about this process than the average John Smith.
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