Judge Judy is ready to take the owner of National Enquirer to court for defamation following a recent Menendez Brothers story.
According to Deadline, the article alleged that the popular judge was seeking a new trial for the infamous brothers, Lyle and Erik Menendez. However, she stated that the story was “unequivocally false.”
Judge Judy is now suing the National Enquirer and InTouch Weekly’s owner, Accelerate360, for unspecified “general and special damages.” Her lawyer, Eric M. George, filed in the state court of Florida and requested a jury trial.
Speaking about the lawsuit the judge shared, “When you fabricate stories about me in order to make money for yourselves with no regard for the truth or the reputation I’ve spent a lifetime cultivating, it’s going to cost you. When you’ve done it multiple times, it’s unconscionable and will be expensive. It has to be expensive so that you will stop.”
The story was published after the premiere of Peacock’s Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed. Roy Rosselló, a former member of the boy band Menudo, alleged in the docuseries that Lyle and Erik’s father José Enrique Menéndez repeatedly raped him as a teen. This backed up the claims that the Menendez brothers made during their trial that their father had sexually abused them over the years. They also said they murdered their father and mother, Kitty Menendez, to stop the abuse.
Rosselló’s statements and newly discovered family correspondence have encouraged the brothers’ attorneys to file a habeas petition in Los Angeles Superior Court earlier this month.
Judge Judy Says She Has Nothing to Do With the Menendez Case
Although the Menendez brothers’ attorneys are looking to overturn both of their life sentences, the case has nothing to do with Judge Judy, despite the National Enquirer’s and InTouch’s claims.
“The article was unequivocally false,” the judge’s lawsuit documents declare. t entirely misquoted its source material, which identified the speaker of the challenged statements by name—an individual identified onscreen in the docuseries as ‘Judi Zamos,’ and as an ‘Alternate Juror, First Trial.’”
The legal documents further point out that Judge Judy has never never by the name Judi Zamos, nor was she an alternate juror in the Menendez trial. “After Plaintiff publicly indicated that she would seek to right the wrong done to her reputation, Defendants removed the April 10 article from the online edition of InTouch Weekly.”
However, Judy’s legal team pointed out that despite the removal from the online edition, the article still appears in the internet search engine results. It is also in other accounts that the lawsuit’s defendants control. This includes the News Break account that the defendants run.
The National Enquirer has made false claims about Judge Judy in the past. In 2017, the publication claimed that she had suffered from “brain disease” and was “fighting” both Alzheimer’s and depression. She was also “hiding a heartbreaking medical crisis.”