Jury Rules that it was Indeed a “Sack of Shit Lie,” as Stu Bykofsky Wins Defamation Case Against Inquirer and Inga Saffron

Thus ends one of my favorite stories ever.

Former Inquirer columnist Stu Bykofsky won his defamation suit against the paper and writer Inga Saffron, after the latter accused him at his 2019 going away party of being down with child prostitutes.

Here’s a portion of the writeup from Craig R. McCoy at the Inky:

Inquirer architecture critic Inga Saffron defamed former Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky when she described him at a retirement send-off as having “a taste for child prostitutes,” a jury found Wednesday.

Bykofsky sued Saffron and The Inquirer’s parent company after the 2019 event, saying she had completely distorted a column he wrote about the sex trade in Thailand. Saffron told jurors her words were an “accurate, short-hand take” on Bykofsky’s article.

After about five hours of deliberation, the 12-member jury found both Saffron and The Inquirer’s parent company liable for defaming Bykofsky. It ordered them to pay him $45,000 in compensatory damages for his emotional distress and embarrassment, but found they owed him nothing for any harm to his reputation or earning power.

The jury imposed a further penalty against Saffron alone, saying she owed Bykofsky $1,000 in punitive damages.

$46,000? Not exactly “fuck you” money, but not bad for a mild case of borderline slander, considering the fact that a grand total of maybe four Philadelphia media outlets wrote about this story. It wasn’t exactly O.J.’s murder trial.

It was a hilarious story, however. After Saffron said the line about child prostitutes, Bykofsky called her comments a “total fucking lie” and “a sack of shit lie.” Victor Fiorillo at Philly Mag obtained the video of the exchange, which Coggin and I had way too much fun with on Twitter.

Back in October, the Inky tried to get this tossed, saying that Saffron was just giving her personal opinion of the guy’s work. He didn’t REALLY like child prostitutes (their argument, not mine). That effort failed and this thing went to trial, resulting in Wednesday’s ruling and Stu receiving the equivalent of a year’s worth of pay for a West Virginia public school teacher.

The other half of this is a counter lawsuit filed by the Inquirer against Byko. The CliffsNotes is that they think he violated a non-disparagement clause he signed when he took the buyout. They say his girlfriend shot and leaked the video, defaming Saffron and the Inky in the process. This lawsuit is still active and has yet to be resolved, but basically amounts to the spider man meme version of defamation suits:

Anyway, props to the Inquirer for doing responsible journalism and writing about a lawsuit they lost. Seriously. Most outlets would just ignore something like this entirely and/or sweep it under the rug. They certainly wouldn’t publicize it.

Outside of Fiorillo, the one guy covering this story is former Inquirer writer Ralph Cipriano, who appears to be very disgruntled and moved his shit behind a paywall recently, but we do have a couple of recent tweets:

When there’s a verdict, the Inky will present a sanitized, he-said, she-said recap that will no doubt be slanted in their favor. Another reason why the paper of record sucks.

— Big Trial (@BigTrialBlog) December 14, 2022

Inky continues it’s weeklong news blackout on the Bykofsky vs. Saffron defamation trial. Imagine if a couple of TV anchors were going at it in court. They’d be all over it. But when they’re the story, it’s time for censorship.

— Big Trial (@BigTrialBlog) December 14, 2022

Dunno, I think the Inquirer’s reporting on this was pretty reasonable.

But anyway, I imagine the court proceedings went something like this:

Inga Saffron: “He had a taste for child prostitutes.”

Stu Bykofsky: “That’s a sack of shit lie!”

Jury: “We agree, here’s $46,000.” 

The post Jury Rules that it was Indeed a “Sack of Shit Lie,” as Stu Bykofsky Wins Defamation Case Against Inquirer and Inga Saffron appeared first on Crossing Broad.