from Cooldalen/Post Falls Press (Kay Thornbrough) Yesterday:
Juror finds blogger Summer Bushnell defamed Post Falls resident Eric Posey after she accused him of murder in Coeur d’Alene in June 2022 Exposing himself to a crowd during an open-air performance in a city park….
On June 11, 2022, the day of Posey’s performance, Bushnell posted a video of himself discussing the mass arrests of Patriot Front members near a city park, along with clips of Posey’s performance.
“Why didn’t anyone arrest the man in the skirt who showed his genitals to minors and to a crowd?” she says in the video. “Nobody has said anything about it and there’s video. I’m going to put up a grainy video to prove it.”
The next day, Bushnell posted an edited video she received from local photographer Jeremy Loken, which included a blurry portion of Posey’s pelvis. Bushnell told others the blur concealed “fully exposed genitalia” and urged people to contact police…
The city attorney ultimately declined to press charges and publicly stated that the unedited footage was not revealing….
Attorney Colton Boyles…insisted that Bushnell had an “honest belief” that Posey had exposed himself, though she admitted on the witness stand that she had never seen the “full exposure” she described to others genitals”…
The award, which included $926,000 in compensatory damages and $250,000 in punitive damages, was based on the finding that “Bushnell knew her allegations were false when she made them or that she acted with ‘reckless disregard’ for the facts when she made them. .
