Attorneys make final pitch to jurors in Rolling Stone trial

“Once they decided what the article was going to be about, it didn’t matter what the facts were,” attorney Tom Clare said.

The story about Jackie’s rape set off a firestorm at the University of Virginia and in schools nationwide and prompted police to launch an investigation into the alleged assault. Eramo received hundreds of angry letters and emails and faced protesters outside her office. The story crumbled after other news outlets began asking questions and police found no evidence to back up Jackie’s claims. The article was officially retracted in April 2015.

There are only three statements about Eramo in the article in question, including one in which she is quoted — through Jackie — as saying that the university doesn’t publish all of its statistics about sexual assault because “nobody wants to send their daughter to the rape school.” Eramo also claims that Erdely defamed her in statements she made on a radio program and podcast after the article was published.

The judge has dismissed Eramo’s claim that the story, when taken as a whole, implied that Eramo was a “false friend” to Jackie — a claim that Rolling Stone called a “critical element” of her case.

Eramo must prove that Rolling Stone statements about her made her appear “odious, infamous or ridiculous” and that the magazine acted with “actual malice,” meaning it knew that what it was writing about her was false or entertained serious doubts as to whether it might be true.

Scott Sexton, an attorney for Rolling Stone, said that Erdely and Rolling Stone editors have proven repeatedly that they never had any doubts about Jackie’s story before it was published. Sexton urged jurors to put themselves in Erdely’s shoes at the time of her reporting and questioned why it would be unreasonable for the writer to believe Jackie when the university itself had taken the woman’s gang rape claim seriously.

“Everyone who encountered this young woman believed her,” Sexton said. “Yet we are the ones, in a sense, being tried for having believed her.”

Rolling Stone has agreed to pay all of Erdely’s legal costs and any penalties that may be levied against her.

Over the course of the more than two-week trial, the 10 jurors have watched 11 hours of video testimony, heard from a dozen live witnesses and have examined nearly 300 exhibits. Jurors will first decide whether the statements in the article defamed Eramo before they consider monetary damages. Attorneys had initially said that seven jurors will deliberate and three will serve as alternates, but Libby Locke, an attorney for Eramo, said Tuesday that all 10 jurors are expected to deliberate Wednesday.

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Follow Alanna Durkin Richer on Twitter at twitter.com/aedurkinricher. Her work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/journalist/alanna-durkin-richer

Alanna Durkin Richer, The Associated Press

by Canadian Press

Attorneys make final pitch to jurors in Rolling Stone trial

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