Last summer, Sacha Baron Cohen emerged victorious after a judge dismissed a $95 million defamation lawsuit filed by failed Alabama senate candidate Roy Moore. The suit stemmed from a 2018 episode of Cohen’s Who Is America? series on Showtime, which featured Moore setting off a “pedophile detector” and storming off the set after being humiliated. In another legal victory for Cohen, the dismissal was upheld by a court of appeals who agreed with the initial judge’s decision that, obviously, the whole thing was a comedy gag. Also, Moore signed a waiver before the appearance, which has come back to bite him twice.
Via Entertainment Weekly:
Now, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan has upheld the lower court’s decision, citing the disclosure agreement. The three presiding judges also found that the “obviously farcical” pedophile detector segment was “clearly comedy” and that “no reasonable person could believe [the pedophile detector] to be an actual, functioning piece of technology.”
According to Entertainment Weekly, Moore plans to file another appeal, and if the case somehow goes in front of the current Supreme Court stacked with Donald Trump appointees, there could be a very different outcome.
In the meantime, the dismissal marks a winning streak for Cohen who had sued a cannabis company for the unauthorized use of his Borat character for a billboard. The two parties reached a satisfactory agreement, and Cohen dismissed the case. The actor also prevailed over a lawsuit filed by the family of a Borat 2 subject who died shortly after filming. The family accused Cohen of tricking Holocaust survivor Judith Dim Evans into appearing in the film. However, Cohen produced footage of him explaining his own Jewish heritage to Evans and detailing how her scene would help battle anti-Semitism. The family dismissed the suit “unconditionally.”
(Via Entertainment Weekly)
Source: https://uproxx.com/tv/sacha-baron-cohen-roy-moore-lawsuit-appeal/