Jury awards US$3 million in damages over Rolling Stone’s false gang-rape story

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Sabrina Rubin Erdely, left, walks to the federal courthouse in Charlottesville with an attorney. Erdely has been ordered to pay US$2 million to a university administrator who was found to have been defamed by Erdeley’s story about a gang rape that never occurred. Photo: AP

Published: 2:04pm, 8 Nov 2016Updated: 8:59pm, 8 Nov 2016

A federal court jury has awarded US$3 million in damages to a University of Virginia administrator that last week found was defamed by Rolling Stone magazine’s now-retracted story of a gang rape.

The 10-person US District Court jury in Charlottesville, Virginia determined that the writer of the article, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, should pay US$2 million in damages and the magazine US$1 million to the administrator, Nicole Eramo.

Eramo, the former associate dean of students at the university, had sought at least US$7.5 million in compensatory damages and US$350,000 in punitive damages in the high-profile case.

Samuel Bayard, an attorney for Rolling Stone, declined to comment when reached by phone following the verdict on Monday night. The magazine apologised to Eramo after last week’s verdict.

University of Virginia administrator Nicole Eramo, centre, leaves the federal courthouse in Charlottesville, Virginia, where she was awarded US$3 million in defamation damages. Photo: AP

Following a three-week trial the jurors on Friday found Rolling Stone, owner Wenner Media and Erdely liable for actual malice against Eramo in the magazine’s November 2014 story A Rape on Campus.

The magazine reported that a female student identified only as “Jackie” was raped at a university fraternity in 2012. The story sparked a national debate about sexual assault at US colleges and resonated with many who saw it as a battle cry against sexual violence on campuses.