Fresh off his Democratic primary loss to Kendrick Meek, Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene is striking back at a pair of newspapers that he claims destroyed his reputation and may have derailed his campaign.
In a defamation lawsuit filed Wednesday in Miami-Dade circuit court, Greene accuses the Miami Herald and St. Petersburg Times of libel for publishing stories "knowingly based on false information" in a "plan to assassinate his character," according to the Herald.
Green is asking for a whopping $500 million in damages for the articles that discussed Mike Tyson's alleged drug use on Greene's party yacht and his alleged profiteering off the real estate meltdown.
"Defendants...published the articles with the goal of destroying the personal, business and political reputation of Greene," the 55-page lawsuit alleges. "[They] had actual knowledge of facts prior to publication that disproved their false accusations but nonetheless proceeded to publication in an intentional effort to harm Greene and his campaign."
Both stories were written and edited by the Times, but were shared with and ran in the Herald.
"We don't have any comment on the lawsuit, since the case was just filed," Herald Executive Editor Anders Gyllenhaal told his own paper. "But we can say that the coverage of this race and the candidates was fair, deep and thorough."
The shenanigans on Greene's 145-foot yacht, Summerwind, have been well publicized. The boat has played host to Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Tyson, who was the best man at Greene's 2007 wedding. A correction on the Tyson drug story, in which he clarified that he hadn't actually been doing drugs on the boat, ran in both papers.
Local
Times editor Neil Brown wasn't quite as mum on the lawsuit as Gyllenhaal.
"It is our firm opinion that the allegations in this lawsuit are preposterous," Brown said. "We believe Jeff Greene is a sore loser and he's blaming the newspapers because he can't accept the verdict of the voters."
