ST. PAUL - Attorneys for Chris Kyle’s estate are asking a judge to throw out a defamation verdict and $1.8 million award in the late Navy SEAL-turned-author's legal battle against Jesse Ventura -- or send the matter back for a new trial.
In court filings Thursday, they argued that the former Minnesota governor didn't meet the high bar of proof for defamation of a public figure. The judge failed to steer the jury away from an erroneous decision, they said, and the award's dollar amount was pulled from thin air.
The Kyle estate is seeking to reverse a verdict issued in July that found the author defamed Ventura in Kyle's best-selling autobiography "American Sniper."
The book claims Kyle punched out a celebrity, dubbed "Scruff Face" but later identified as Ventura, at California bar in 2006 after the man badmouthed fallen soldiers.
Ventura said it never happened. The author was shot to death in 2013 at a Texas gun range; Ventura took the lawsuit to trial against his estate, represented by his widow, Taya.
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The judge will hear arguments on the filings at a date that has yet to be set.
