NEW YORK (AP) — A New York judge has thrown out a defamation lawsuit against Rolling Stone magazine over the magazine’s debunked article about a University of Virginia gang rape.
Federal Judge P. Kevin Castel said Tuesday the lawsuit brought by three former fraternity members cited comments that were offered as speculation and hypothesis rather than fact.
The former Phi Kappa Psi members brought the lawsuit last year. They claimed they were defamed by a November 2014 article describing in chilling detail a student’s account of being raped by seven men at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house in September 2012.
An investigation by Charlottesville, Virginia, police found no evidence to back up the claims of the woman identified in the article as “Jackie.”
Rolling Stone retracted the article and the magazine apologized.
