Television personality “Judge Judy” Sheindlin has filed a lawsuit against the parent company of the National Enquirer and InTouch Weekly. The lawsuit is in response to a false story published by the publications, which claimed that Sheindlin was involved in an effort to secure a retrial for the Menendez brothers. The Menendez brothers were previously convicted of the murder of their parents.
According to a lawsuit filed in circuit court in Collier County, Florida, the story was originally published on InTouch Weekly’s website on April 10. The headline of the article was “Inside Judge Judy’s Quest to Save the Menendez Brothers Nearly 35 Years After Their Parents’ Murder.”
Related posts
The National Enquirer, a sister publication to InTouch Weekly owned by Accelerate360 Media, also featured a version of the story. The 1989 Menendez murders in Beverly Hills, California, gained a certain level of tabloid fame.
Sheindlin has refrained from commenting on the case, but her lawsuit suggests that the news outlets mistakenly attributed statements made by “Judi Ramos,” an alternate juror in the first Menendez trial featured in a Fox Nation docuseries, to the television judge.
Accelerate360, who failed to sell the National Enquirer last year, has not yet made any comments regarding the matter.
Sheindlin did not specify a particular amount for damages, but she emphasized that it would not come cheap.
In a strongly worded statement, she expressed her frustration with the media’s tendency to publish fabricated stories about her solely for monetary gain, without considering the truth or the damage it does to her hard-earned reputation. She emphasized that this behavior will not be tolerated and will come at a significant cost to those involved. The repeated occurrence of such actions is deemed as unconscionable and necessitates a hefty financial consequence in order to deter future misconduct.
In the past, Sheindlin, who hosted the syndicated show “Judge Judy” until 2021 and currently hosts “Judy Justice,” has had previous encounters with the Enquirer.
In 2017, the newspaper issued a retraction and offered an apology for publishing stories that contained false claims about her health, specifically alleging that she had Alzheimer’s disease and depression and had been unfaithful to her husband.
