University of Virginia associate dean of students Nicole Eramo has been awarded $3 million by a federal jury in the wake of the Rolling Stone magazine defamation lawsuit.
Jurors ruled Monday that Eramo’s portrayal in a now-discredited Rolling Stone article published in 2014 titled “A Rape on Campus” was inaccurate.
Eramo claimed that the article alleging that the school mishandled a brutal gang rape at a fraternity house painted her as a villain who sought only to protect the university, the Associated Press reported. She had originally sued the magazine for $7.5 million, and told the courtroom Monday that she was so distressed by the piece, she “just wanted to disappear.”
Eramo also told jurors that after it was published in November 2014, she had trouble sleeping, feared for her safety and struggled with how to explain what was happening to her then-7-year-old son, the New York Post reported.
On Friday, the jury found that Rolling Stone magazine, its publisher and reporter Sabrina Erdely were responsible for libel, with actual malice, according to the AP.
The lawsuit was the result of a 9,000-word feature in the magazine written by Erdely that has since been labeled a hoax. The detailed story of the gang rape of University of Virginia student “Jackie” at a frat party ignited outrage over the handling of sexual assault on campuses nationwide.
Shortly after it was published in 2014, details of the article were brought into question. Eventually, Rolling Stone retracted the piece and apologized. Eramo claimed the article portrayed her as a villain who discouraged “Jackie” from reporting the incident to police.
“We overlooked reporting paths and made journalistic mistakes that we are committed to never making again,” the magazine admitted in a statement following the decision.
The subsequent two-week trial had a jury of eight women and two men who watched 11 hours of video testimony, heard from numerous witnesses and examined nearly 300 exhibits.