Taya Kyle, the widow of "American Sniper" Chris Kyle, is urging a judge to toss out a jury's verdict that awarded former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura $1.8 million in his defamation lawsuit against Kyle's estate.
According to the Minnesota Star-Tribune, Kyle wants the judge to either set the verdict aside, or to order a new trial.
Mrs. Kyle's attorneys filed paperwork Thursday that argues the evidence presented in the July trial did not warrant the jury's monetary award for defamation and "unjust enrichment."
According to The Associated Press:
Taya Kyle's attorneys say Ventura failed to meet his burden of proving that Chris Kyle's story was false, and that he made his statements knowing they were false or probably false.
Ventura claimed Chris Kyle defamed him in his bestselling book American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History.
A Minneapolis Star Tribune article from May 2013 explains:
In a section of his book called “Punching Out Scruff Face,” Kyle describes a confrontation with a “celebrity” at a 2006 wake for a Navy SEAL. He claimed “Scruff Face” made disparaging remarks about the war, the United States and President George W. Bush, provoking Kyle to punch him in the face.
Kyle later identified "Scruff Face" as Ventura. The alleged incident happened at McP's Irish Pub in Coronado.
As Home Post previously reported, Ventura filed his defamation lawsuit in 2012. When Kyle was shot to death in February 2013, his Taya Kyle became the defendant in the suit.
