Bombshell CNN defamation lawsuit had a surprise ending following guilty verdict
PANAMA CITY, Fla. (WMBB) — After 8 days of testimony and another 8 hours of deliberation, a local jury came back with their decision in a high-profile media lawsuit.
“Do you find by the greater weight of the evidence that defendant CNN committed defamation per se against plaintiff Zachary Young? Yes. Number two, do you find by the greater weight of the evidence that defendant CNN committed defamation by implication against plaintiff Zachary Young? Yes.”
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In 2021, the Biden Administration pulled U.S. troops out of Afghanistan. The chaotic withdrawal left thousands of Afghan nationals at the mercy of the Taliban. Many scrambled to find a way to evacuate.
CNN produced a story about the highly lucrative black market evacuation trade that developed.
The story implicated security consultant Zachary Young and his company Nemex Enterprises. In reality, the security consultant was working with corporate sponsors who funded the evacuations.
During closing arguments Thursday, Young’s attorney Devin Freedman said Afghans wouldn’t be able to afford the service themselves and needed guidance following extraction from Afghanistan.
“These refugees needed someone who could navigate the complex legal issues that arose when Afghans arrived in new countries,” Freedman said.
CNN’s lead attorney David Axelrod tried to convince the jury that Young was profiteering off “desperate Afghans.”
“The story got started by Jill Kornetsky saying, ‘Anyone interested in a story about an American mercenary charging people $13,000 per head?’ And how did she know about it? Because he was out there on LinkedIn, out in the open advertising his services,” Axelrod said.
The defense attorney called the story truthful and argued Young put himself in the middle of it.
“Mr. Young, he didn’t want to be reported on. No doubt about that. We see that in all those text messages, but he put himself in the middle of this story. He was out there, his advertisements to Afghans, as the court has already found, they were newsworthy,” Axelrod said.
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When jurors returned a verdict for Young, they awarded him $4 million for lost wages and $1 million for emotional distress.
They were in the process of deciding punitive damages when both sides said they’d reached a settlement, presumably more than the $5 million figure the jury reached.
An accountant testified that Young lost $21 million in the 3 years since the story aired.
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