Clips shared by Russian news site 112 show the suspect, Daria Trepova, initially trying to back out of the room after handing a box containing a small statuette to Maxim Fomim, a military propagandist better known as Vladlen Tatarsky.
“Nastya, Nastya, come sit here,” Tatarsky, 40, called out to Trepova, 26, using the pseudonym the assassin allegedly used to hide her identity as a Ukraine-linked anti-war activist.
Trepova — who is due in court Tuesday for her first hearing, accused of terrorism — is seen nervously turning back as the blogger urges her to sit right near him.
She compromises by agreeing to stay for the political discussion, but in a different chair several feet to the left of Tatarsky, who has been one of the most enthusiastic cheerleaders for Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Unaware of the horror about to unfold, the blogger is seen affectionately opening the box and admiring the bust he was handing, joking: “Oh, what a handsome guy! Is that me?”
One clip cut to the suspected assassin during the exchange — showing her holding her hands out and leaning back, before moving her hands over her face as the explosion ripped through the cafe.
Another angle showed that Tatarsky was carefully putting the bust back in the box while being asked a question when the explosion blew him up.
Trepova, who was seen in other footage carrying the box into the café, was also seen outside later as others were bent over in pain and covered in blood, at least one person stricken on the ground. Around 30 people were wounded in the blast.
Russian authorities described the bombing as an act of terrorism and blamed Ukrainian intelligence agencies for orchestrating the attack at the riverside cafe in the historic heart of Russia’s second-largest city.
The Interior Ministry later released a video in which Trepova confessed to bringing the bust to the café.
The National Anti-Terrorist Committee said the bombing was “planned by Ukrainian special services” and that Trepova is an “active supporter” of imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
“The involvement of the Kyiv regime in this bloody action will be another confirmation of its use of terrorist methods,” Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, according to state agency TASS.
The suspect previously spent 10 days in custody for taking part in an anti-war rally.
Her case was transferred to Moscow in a sign of how seriously it was being taken. She is due in Moscow’s Basmanny District Court on Tuesday and faces a life sentence for terrorist crimes.
Tatarsky previously joined separatists in eastern Ukraine after a Moscow-backed insurgency erupted there in 2014. He then turned to blogging, amassing more than 560,000 followers on Telegram.
He was an ardent supporter of President Vladimir Putin, who honored him with a posthumous Order of Courage, TASS said.
ZURICH – Credit Suisse is expected to face shareholder anger at what will be its final annual general meeting on Tuesday after the bank was rescued last month by rival UBS.
The hastily arranged takeover by Zurich-based UBS, for which Switzerland invoked emergency legislation, bypassed Credit Suisse shareholders, who would otherwise have had a say, and largely wiped out the value of their holdings.
The meeting marks an ignominious end for the 167-year-old flagship bank founded by Alfred Escher, a Swiss magnate affectionately dubbed King Alfred I, who helped build the country’s railways and then the bank.
Protesters gathered outside the concert venue where the meeting was taking place, with some erecting a capsized boat to depict the bank’s demise.
Shareholder advisory firm Ethos decried the “greed and incompetence of its managers” as well as pay that reached “unimaginable heights”, as it prepared to challenge top executives at the meeting.
“Shareholders have lost considerable amounts of money and thousands of jobs are on the line,” it said.
After years of scandal and losses, Credit Suisse came to the brink of collapse before UBS rode to the rescue with a merger engineered and bankrolled by the Swiss authorities.
The meeting is the first time that Chairman Axel Lehmann and Chief Executive Ulrich Koerner will publicly address shareholders since the takeover was announced.
Credit Suisse had been attempting to put the past behind it and restructure, before a shock triggered by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in the U.S. sent it into a spiral.
After a run on deposits, the Swiss government turned to UBS, which agreed to buy Credit Suisse for $3.3 billion, a fraction of its earlier market value.
The move angered not only shareholders but many in Switzerland.
A recent survey by political research firm gfs.bern found a majority of Swiss did not support the deal.
“The government’s use of emergency powers to push this deal through goes beyond legal and democratic norms,” said Dominik Gross of the Swiss Alliance of Development Organizations.
“Swiss taxpayers too are on the hook for billions of francs of junk investments and yet the government, FINMA and the central bank have given little explanation about the state’s 9 billion (franc) loss guarantee to UBS.”
One of the world’s biggest investors, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund said it would vote against the re-election of Lehmann and six other directors, in a public show of protest.
U.S. proxy adviser Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) had earlier rebuked the bank’s management for a “lack of oversight and poor stewardship”.
In the lead-up to Tuesday’s meeting, Credit Suisse said it had withdrawn certain proposals from the agenda.
Those include the discharge of management, which is typically a bellwether of confidence. It also ditched plans for a special bonus linked to the bank’s transformation plan.
Credit Suisse’s near collapse also completely wiped out $17 billion of Additional Tier 1 (AT1) debt.
A group of AT1 investors has hired law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan to demand compensation.
Meanwhile, the office of the attorney general on Sunday said Switzerland’s Federal Prosecutor has opened an investigation into the Credit Suisse takeover.
The prosecutor is looking into potential breaches of Swiss criminal law by government officials, regulators and executives at the two banks.
The body of Stephen Smith, a South Carolina teen whose unsolved 2015 murder has gained new traction thanks to the Alex Murdaugh case, was exhumed over the weekend, the family’s lawyer confirmed.
Smith’s body was removed from his grave, re-examined in a second autopsy and returned to his final resting place, attorney Eric Bland tweeted Sunday.
The 19-year-old was found dead, with head trauma, on the side of a road in Hampton County on July 8, 2015 in what investigators at the time ruled a hit-and-run.
Last month — nearly eight years later — the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) reclassified his death as a homicide after investigators found “new evidence” about the teenager’s final moments in the course of their probe into the 2021 murders of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh.
“I now believe that Stephen can really rest at ease because SLED and our team are going to do everything possible to find out just how he died,” Bland said in his tweet.
He also announced that the late teen’s mother Sandy Smith is offering a $35,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the person or persons responsible for her son’s death.
The money was raised as part of a GoFundMe for the distraught mother.
Much of the more than $100,000 raised was used to fund the exhumation and private autopsy of Smith’s body.
Smith’s mysterious death gained renewed attention after the closely watched trial of patriarch Alex Murdaugh for the shooting deaths of his son and wife on the family’s property.
Smith’s body was found laying in the street not far from the 1,700-acre estate and the teen was a high school classmate of Alex Murdaugh’s surviving son Buster.
Sandy Smith linked Buster — who was rumored to have had a romantic relationship with Smith, who was gay — to her son’s murder in a letter she sent to federal investigators in 2016.
She also said local law enforcement botched the investigation.
Buster has denied the “vicious rumors” that he was involved in Smith’s death.
“Stephen for many, many years I can only imagine was not so much at peace in his grave,” Bland said in a video posted on Twitter. “He probably was pounding on his coffin to anybody who could hear ‘I was not hit by a car but I was intentionally killed.’ And now we’ve told him we hear his voice.”
The legal hits keep coming against former President Trump.
The Justice Department and FBI found new evidence of possible obstruction by the GOP firebrand tied to their investigation into classified documents recovered at Mar-a-Lago last year, the Washington Post reported Sunday.
After Trump’s advisors received a subpoena in May demanding the records back, the 76-year-old ex-commander-in-chief leafed through some of the boxes of top-secret government documents in an apparent effort to keep certain things in his possession, according to the report, which cited people familiar with the probe.
Some of the government records from the raid were marked as highly classified.
Investigators also have evidence that indicates Trump told others to mislead government officials in early 2022 – before the May subpoena – when the National Archives and Records Administration was working to get back documents from Trump’s time in the White House, the Washington Post reported.
The latest revelation comes amid a myriad of criminal probes the former president is facing, including the indictment issued last week in Manhattan over hush money paid to pornstar Stormy Daniels.
The classified documents probe is one of two criminal inquiries into the 2024 presidential contender spearheaded by Special Counsel Jack Smith.
The special counsel is also looking into whether Trump tried to block Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election win.
The FBI declined to comment on the report, but Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung blasted the probes in a statement to the Washington Post.
“The witch-hunts against President Trump have no basis in facts or law,” he said.
“The deranged special counsel and the DoJ have now resorted to prosecutorial misconduct by illegally leaking information to corrupt the legal process and weaponize the justice system in order to manipulate public opinion and conduct election interference, because they are clearly losing all across the board.”
The federal probes are only part of Trump’s legal headaches.
The former president is expected to be arraigned in Manhattan court this Tuesday over hush-money payments made on his behalf to Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.
Trump also faces a Georgia inquiry into whether or not he tried to overturn the 2020 election which he lost to President Biden, 80.
Former Vice President Mike Pence offered a sharp rebuke of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s decision to indict former President Trump.
“It’s clear to the overwhelming majority of the American people that this is nothing short of a political prosecution being affected by a Manhattan DA who literally campaigned on bringing charges against one particular American,” Pence said Friday at the National Review Institute in Washington.
“That should be offensive to every American, left, right and center. Every American deserves equal treatment under the law and I believe the American people will see this for what it is,” Pence said — dismissing Trump’s alleged transgression as a “campaign finance issue.”
On Thursday evening, Bragg issued a 34-count indictment of Trump. While believed to center around hush-money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels to buy her silence about an affair she claims she had with Trump in 2006, which he denies, multiple reports said the charges include at least one felony.
Though Pence spent four years as one of Trump’s most loyal lieutenants, he publicly broke with the president over Trump’s demands that he not certify the 2020 presidential results.
During deadly riots on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump supporters were heard shouting, “Hang Mike Pence!” The former veep has since spoken out against his former boss and said Trump’s behavior on Jan. 6 was “wrong” and “endangered my family.”
Two separate gangs were apparently preying on both straight and gay club-goers in Manhattan, from the Lower East Side to Hell’s Kitchen, for months — drugging and then robbing them via their phones — before it became clear it was a pattern, some of the victims’ parents told The Post.
Cops are investigating at least 43 incidents that took place all over the city between September 2021 and December 2022. Ten men with lengthy rap sheets have been identified as part of one gang and five in the other one, police sources told The Post. A number of them are reportedly from the Farragut Houses in Brooklyn.
Up-and-coming fashion designer Kathryn “Katie” Gallagher was among the victims of one of the two gangs, police said. The 35-year-old, who dressed Lady Gaga and other celebrities, was found dead of an overdose in her Eldridge Street apartment last year. On March 24, cops publicly declared her death a homicide.
Six members of one gang who preyed on gay men at Hell’s Kitchen nightclubs were indicted last week for the so-called “roofie” murders of John Umberger, 33, and Julio Ramirez, 25, last year.
Late Friday, police said they were seeking three members of one crew, Jayquan Hamilton, 35, Robert DeMaio, 34, both of Brooklyn, and Jacob Barroso, 30, of Harlem, in connection with the deaths of Umberger and Ramirez.
But well before the indictments, the father of a man who survived being drugged and robbed after being at a gay club went to the police with evidence, including electronic receipts, from his son’s phone.
“It seemed really clear by what I could see that this was more of an organized criminal enterprise than a one-off crime,” the father, who wanted to remain anonymous to ensure his son’s privacy, told The Post. “But they sat on it. We knew it was something bigger so it was frustrating when nothing was done.”
Linda Clary, Umberger’s mother, said more people came forward when they heard about other victims, but that it took a while for anyone to realize that there were organized criminal rings at work.
In most cases, the victims left bars with their assailants and were robbed after passing out from being drugged, or “roofied.” Even as they were unconscious, the suspects used facial recognition technology to unlock victims’ phones and then drained their bank accounts.
The only suspect arrested so far is Andre Butts, 28, who was caught using Ramirez’s credit card to buy two pairs of Nikes for $544.38 not long after Ramirez was found dead in a taxi in April 2022. Butts’ attorney, Terrence J. Grifferty, did not return calls from The Post.
“I think the police department and the mayor’s office knew that something like this was going on and they didn’t want to talk about it because New York was just coming out of the pandemic and people were going out again and they didn’t want to scare them off,” Clary said.
“The city has provided the perfect environment for this kind of crime to become rampant with so many [criminals] allowed back on the street no matter how long their rap sheets.”
Both parents said police seemed to initially downplay the incidents, as if they were accidental overdoses or, in the case of one young man who survived being drugged and robbed, that he had maybe “fallen asleep” and then been robbed.
“Who falls asleep in your apartment with two strangers there?” the father said.
Warrants were issued March 24 for the arrest of three of the men in the crew operating in the Hell’s Kitchen area for first-degree murder, while all six men have been hit with charges of grand larceny and first-degree robbery as well as conspiracy to drug and rob at least a dozen victims.
Umberger, 33, and Ramirez, 25, died from “acute intoxication” from a mix of fentanyl, cocaine, ethanol and other drugs, the city Medical Examiner found on March 3.
Both men were victims of homicides caused by “drug-facilitated thefts,” after leaving the Q NYC and Ritz Bar and Lounge gay nightclubs, the ME found.
The city medical examiner determined that Gallagher died from acute intoxication from the combined effects of fentanyl, ethanol and the designer opioid p-Fluorofentanyl.
Umberger, a Washington, DC, political consultant, disappeared on Saturday, May 28, 2022, after a night out at The Q NYC, a gay nightclub at 795 Eighth Ave., while visiting New York for work.
His credit card was used around 3 a.m. at the club and he was last seen an hour later on a surveillance camera, with three unidentified men in a car outside the Upper East Side townhouse where he was staying.
His body was found there four days later, on June 1.
Umberger’s cellphone and credit cards were missing. More than $25,000 had been transferred out of his accounts through cash apps on his phone such as Venmo and PayPal.
Five weeks earlier, on Thursday, April 21, and in similar circumstances, Ramirez, a Brooklyn social worker, was found dead in the back of a taxi on the Lower East Side at about 4 am.
An hour earlier he had been captured by a security camera with three unidentified men leaving the Ritz Bar and Lounge, a gay club on West 46th Street, two blocks from Q NYC.
Like Umberger, Ramirez’s phone and wallet were missing, and his bank accounts had been emptied of about $20,000 via apps such as Venmo and Zelle; later, his credit cards were maxed out on expensive dinners and spa services.
According to sources familiar with the investigation, one gang operated mainly in Lower Manhattan while the other focused both on Lower Manhattan and Midtown. They used similar methods to befriend and then drug and rob their victims, but authorities reportedly but don’t believe the two crews are related.
One gang chose certain locations “because there are a lot of good-looking girls there.”
The two gangs are believed to have been involved in at least 43 separate incidents.
A drag performer named Jaé, who performs regularly at the Ritz on 46th Street where Ramirez evidently met the men who drugged him, told The Post Thursday night that everyone there knows what happened to Ramires and is aware of the danger in clubs — but she still feels safe.
Clutching a Long Island iced tea in one hand while she stood by the bar and spoke over a Cube Guys remix of “I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” Jaé said the Ritz is her “home bar” and her “therapy.”
“I’ve always been careful whenever I’m out and about even before all this,” she said. “I hold my drinks when I’m out because you can’t just trust who’s around you. You’re around strangers and you don’t know what their intentions are. Just be safe … But don’t stop going out and having fun.”
A Youtuber named Sky Santana who was standing near the now-shuttered Q club Thursday night said she believed that only gay people were being targeted and said she didn’t believe reports that straight clubgoers are also being victimized.
“They are going after the LGBTQ community, they are going after us,” she said.
Police sources said, however, that sexual orientation is not believed to be part of the gangs’ MO — just money.
A bouncer at another gay club in Hell’s Kitchen on Ninth Avenue, who asked to remain anonymous, said he and other club employees keep their eyes on customers at all times and don’t let them go into the bathroom together or leave drinks unattended.
“We watching,” he said.
Added the father of the young man who survived being drugged and robbed: “Everyone out there should re-consider whether unlocking your phone with your face is a good idea.”
Terry Sanderson, 76, said he shouldn’t have bothered pursuing legal action against the Goop founder, telling reporters outside the courtroom that he was “very disappointed” to lose the case.
When asked if the lawsuit was worth it, Sanderson responded with a clear-cut, “Absolutely not.”
This was perhaps after personal details from his private life, medical history, and testimonies from his daughters and ex-girlfriend were aired out in the courtroom.
“Knowing that now, no,” he said, according to a video from Extra. “I joked about dating sites, right? It’s like, I’m gonna be on the internet forever.”
Sanderson previously said the lawsuit means he can now “never go on another dating site again. It’s the pain of trying to sue a celebrity.”
The doctor sued Paltrow in 2019 for $3.1 million, claiming the crash at the Deer Valley ski resort left him brain-impaired and damaged his relationships with others.
After a judge dismissed his initial complaint, Sanderson refiled for $300,000.
Paltrow countersued for $1 — plus her likely six-figure legal fees — which the jury awarded her as they agreed the actress was not liable for the crash.
The actress, 50, smiled and waved at photographers outside the court, capping a wild eight-day trial that grabbed international headlines for everything from the Oscar winner’s Jeffrey Dahmer-style glasses to her off-the-wall remarks.
As Judge Kent Holmberg delivered the verdict Thursday, the Oscar winner maintained her composure before letting a subtle smile poke through.
“We’re pleased with the outcome and appreciate the judge and jury’s consideration,” Paltrow’s attorney, Steven Owens, said in a statement outside the courtroom.
“Gwyneth has a history of standing up for what’s right and this situation is no different. She will continue to stand up for what’s right,” he added.
A statement was also released by Paltrow’s representatives on her behalf.
“I felt that acquiescing to a false claim compromised my integrity,” Paltrow said. “I am pleased with the outcome and I appreciate all of the hard work of Judge Holmberg and the jury, and thank them for their thoughtfulness in handling this case.”
All nine were members of the 101st Airborne Division and were training at Fort Campbell in Kentucky during the tragic crash.
“This is a time of great sadness for the 101st Airborne Division. The loss of these soldiers will reverberate through our formations for years to come,” said Maj. Gen. JP McGee, commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) and Fort Campbell.
The Army identified the soldiers as: Warrant Officer 1 Jeffery Barnes, 33, of Milton, Florida; Cpl. Emilie Marie Eve Bolanos, 23, of Austin, Texas; Chief Warrant Officer 2 Zachary Esparza, 36, of Jackson, Missouri; Sgt. Isaacjohn Gayo, 27, of Los Angeles.; Staff Sgt. Joshua C. Gore, 25, of Morehead City, North Carolina; Warrant Officer 1 Aaron Healy, 32, of Cape Coral, Florida; Staff Sgt. Taylor Mitchell, 30, of Mountain Brook, Alabama; Chief Warrant Officer 2 Rusten Smith, 32, of Rolla, Missouri; and Sgt. David Solinas Jr., 23, of Oradell, New Jersey.
The four soldiers piloting the two Black Hawks were Esparza, Smith, Barnes and Healy, according to the Army.
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All of the deceased were remembered fondly in heartbreaking tributes across the country Friday.
Smith was remembered by a middle school teacher as a driven and ambitious person.
“What a great kid. What a tragedy,” Busby said by phone from his home in St. James, Missouri, the small town where Smith grew up. “I’ll be honest I wept — what a shame.”
Solinas — one of the two youngest killed in the crash — was a dedicated flight medic, his brother Adrian said in a statement.
“We are a faithful family, and we are proud David was training to rescue soldiers on the battlefield,” he said. “Being a flight medic is one of the most difficult jobs that you can do, and illustrates that David was a man of compassion and faith.
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North Carolina Pastor Time Gore posted on Facebook that his “precious son” Gore leaves behind a pregnant wife.
“My son and his precious wife were expecting and it is a boy,” the pastor revealed of daughter-in-law Hailey Gore and the child she is expecting “in about 6 months.”
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear ordered flags at state buildings lowered to half-staff from sunrise on Saturday until sunset Monday in honor of the nine victims.
The soldiers — five on one of the choppers and four on the other — were conducting a “planned training exercise” that involved using night-vision goggles when they plummeted to the ground.
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The accident occurred during flying and not during the course of a medical evacuation drill, said Brig. Gen. John Lubas, the 101st Airborne deputy commander.
One witness noted that the aircraft was flying “pretty low” over local homes when they collided.
Photos from the scene showed a huge ball of flames as rescuers rushed to the wrecked HH-60 Blackhawk helicopters.
All nine on board were pronounced dead at the scene. No civilians were injured in the crash.
It was not clear why the helicopters collided given clear visibility and low wind, and neither pilot made any distress calls.
An Army aviation safety team from Fort Rucker, Alabama, was on the scene Friday to investigate the deadly crash.
A TikToker who recorded a Canadian dad being fatally stabbed in front of his daughter and fiancée at a Starbucks is facing backlash after he allegedly took a selfie next to the victim’s body and smiled while filming the horrifying scene.
Alex Bodger shot a sickening video of Paul Stanley Schmidt being attacked outside the Vancouver coffee shop on Sunday after asking his alleged assailant to not to vape in front of his 3-year-old daughter, the Toronto Sun reported.
Bodger — who goes by Gora Pakora on TikTok — appeared to smirk when he shot the unfolding incident, according to the news outlet.
“This motherf— just died, bro. He just died, bro, holy f—!” he exclaimed, drawing the wrath of people who slammed him for capitalizing on a ghastly crime.
“This is the TikTok generation. I fear for our disgusting future,” one Twitter user wrote.
Another wrote, “I was so disgusted by his actions and words that I honestly was speechless… No emotion period.”
But Bodger told Global News that he was traumatized by the event.
“It’s not something you think you would see walking down the street in Vancouver on a Sunday,” Bodger told the outlet. “Every time I think about the situation I get this feeling in my chest which is pure fear.”
But according to one Twitter user, Bodger also took a selfie next to the victim’s body and even returned the following day to smoke at the crime scene.
The man later posted a video in which he tried to explain his actions — saying he tends to smile during “uncomfortable situations.”
“So I’m walking down the road, I thought I see a street fight … so I start running over there. I start videotaping and I see some blood an d so I just thought maybe there was a bloody nose or something,” he says in the video.
“My brain wasn’t allowing me to believe what was happening. And I knew he was dead, but at the same time, this my first time ever experiencing this right so like, my brain is just like ‘he’s dead’ so I start screaming,” Bodger says.
“The murderer is standing right there, all that’s going through my head is like, ‘Holy f—, I’m standing right here screaming he’s dead … what if he come at me and f— kills me.’ But I’m in so much shock just standing there,” he continues.
Bodger then goes on to explain his “controversial” smile.
“I was so uncomfortable. I didn’t know what just happened. That’s how I always am in uncomfortable situations,” he says. “I put a little bit of a smile on my face. I’m sorry for the people that it pissed off.”
The TikToker then bizarrely goes on to say: “Yeah, this s— (the stabbing), it doesn’t faze me too much. I’ll just say human life, to me, the way I look at it, if I don’t know you, is meaningless … he’s dead. What can we do now?”
The suspect, 32-year-old Inderdeep Singh Gosa, was arrested inside the Starbucks and was charged with second-degree murder.
Schmidt’s mother, Kathy Schmidt, said she was told the suspect attacked her son after he asked him not to vape in front of 3-year-old Erica.
The 37-year-old dad’s fiancée, Ashley Umali, was getting drinks at the time of the bloody attack but witnessed her partner’s last breaths.
“This is so horribly wrong what happened. He was just trying to protect his daughter. I’m angry and I’m sad,” Schmidt said. “It all started because he was vaping beside the baby. Ashley’s in shock — she watched the whole thing. She’s so devastated.”
The family and police have urged people not to share the shocking footage of the savage attack.
Meghan Markle has won the defamation lawsuit brought forward by her half-sister, Samantha Markle.
Samantha Markle, 58, sued the Duchess of Sussex in federal court in Florida for allegedly making “demonstrably false and malicious statements” about her to a world audience during her and Prince Harry’s bombshell March 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Samantha filed the $75,000 lawsuit after Meghan told Oprah that she grew up as an only child.
The comments subjected Samantha to “humiliation and hatred,” she claimed.
But on Thursday, a Florida judge didn’t see it that way and dismissed the lawsuit, saying Meghan’s remarks were opinions and “not capable of being proved false.”
“As a reasonable listener would understand it, Defendant merely expresses an opinion about her childhood and her relationship with her half-siblings,” US District Judge Charlene Edwards Honeywell wrote in her order.
“Thus, the Court finds that Defendant’s statement is not objectively verifiable or subject to empirical proof. Plaintiff cannot plausibly disprove Defendant’s opinion of her own childhood.”
Samantha, who shares a dad with the exiled royal, claimed Meghan “orchestrated the campaign to defame and destroy her sister’s and her father’s reputation and credibility in order to preserve and promote the false ‘rags-to-royalty’ narrative [Meghan] had fabricated about her life to the Royal Family and the worldwide media.”
Samantha’s lawyer Peter Ticktin told the court that Meghan got caught in a lie about her upbringing and decided to slam her half-sister and estranged father to cover it up, according to the Daily Mail.
“Why else is she putting her sister down? Why else is she putting her father down? Why else is she denying her family who has done nothing but good to her all her life?” Ticktin said. “She never had a problem with them at all.”
He said the “false narrative” put out by Meghan harmed his client.
Meghan’s lawyer, Michael Kump, however, said Samantha had no grounds to sue for defamation.
He said the claims made by Samantha and her lawyer were “quite frankly offensive to my client” and demanded the case be dismissed.
“Not every perceived slight ought to be litigated and that’s true here,” he said last month. “Plaintiff is taking issue with Meghan’s own impressions of her own childhood growing up but that’s not a proper subject matter for a court of law.”
He added that the duchess and former “Suits” star has a right to voice opinions “and even criticize” under the First Amendment.
The estranged half-sisters had been at odds for years before the famous 2021 Oprah interview.
Meghan has repeatedly accused Samantha and their father Thomas of selling stories to the British tabloids.
For her part, Samantha has continued to fire shots at the duchess and brother-in-law Prince Harry as the couple continues putting out documentaries and memories.
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