Staff Reports
The Tampa Bay Times settled a libel suit filed against it by Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene, the newspaper reported Thursday.
The terms of that settlement were not released.
“We have been in this legal standoff for nearly six years,” Times editor Neil Brown said in a statement. “The settlement represents our insurance company’s calculation of acceptable legal expenses.
“On the central dispute, the Times does not retract or correct our coverage, nor will we limit any future reporting,” he added.
Greene, a real estate developer, ran as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate in 2010. The seat eventually was won by current Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.
Greene claimed both newspapers derailed his Senate campaign with coverage of alleged fraudulent real estate deals and wild parties on his 145-foot yacht.
Democrat Kendrick Meek, a former state senator, went on to win the Democratic primary.
One story insinuated that former boxer Mike Tyson — best man at Greene’s wedding — had used drugs on the yacht. The Times later ran a rare front-page clarification, with Tyson saying he did not use drugs on Greene’s yacht.
A Miami-Dade circuit judge dismissed Greene’s suit in 2012, saying he couldn’t “prove the paper acted in malice,” a legal standard in libel actions brought by public figures.
Greene would have to show the Times and Herald knew their stories were wrong or that they had a “reckless disregard” of whether their reporting was false or not.
An appellate court reversed the judge’s decision and revived the suit, saying Greene’s claims were “legally sufficient” to move forward.
Greene already settled last month with The Miami Herald, the Times’ co-defendant in the case. The terms of that arrangement also weren’t disclosed.
