BOCA RATON, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A court-appointed Special Master in a voting company lawsuit against Newsmax has ruled in Newsmax’s favor, denying a sanctions motion alleging Newsmax’s CEO and top staff purposefully destroyed evidence.
Last month, on July 15, 2024, the Special Master appointed by the Delaware Superior Court denied the voting company’s key claims made against Newsmax in the motion for spoliation sanctions filed in May 2024.
In its motion, Smartmatic alleged that Newsmax’s CEO Christopher Ruddy and other senior staff at Newsmax intentionally deleted evidence, including text messages, that Smartmatic claimed was relevant to the case.
The Special Master ruled that Smartmatic failed to prove that the Newsmax CEO or senior staff intentionally or recklessly destroyed evidence in the case.
Newsmax informed the Special Master that some of Ruddy’s text messages were accidentally not preserved on his mobile phone, but he located another device that had many if not all of the text messages. Those messages were produced to Smartmatic in the litigation.
Newsmax notes that it informed the Special Master that neither Ruddy nor any senior staff sought to hide text messages or emails, which in many cases were also collected from dozens of other Newsmax witnesses in the case and produced to Smartmatic.
Newsmax separately filed a Motion for Sanctions against Smartmatic on May 13, 2024, and a Motion for Contempt against Smartmatic on July 16, 2024.
Both of those motions remain pending.
In its motions Newsmax argues that Smartmatic and its executives have misled Newsmax, the Special Master, and the Court about the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) ongoing criminal investigation into Smartmatic.
The DOJ has alleged that Smartmatic and several of its senior executives participated in an international scheme involving a multi-million-dollar bribe allegedly made to an election official in the Philippines in exchange for the company getting nearly $200 million in contracts.
[The publicly filed versions of Newsmax’s Motion for Sanctions and Motion for Contempt are attached.]
Newsmax contends that ongoing and future news reports about Smartmatic’s alleged involvement in the bribery scheme is and will remain devastating to its defamation lawsuit against Newsmax.
Specifically, Newsmax says that these new revelations undermine Smartmatic’s claim that it will suffer damage to its future business prospects as a result of 2020 election coverage by Newsmax and others.
Newsmax contends that Smartmatic’s alleged role in the bribery scheme and the potential for federal criminal charges against Smartmatic and its senior executives have harmed and will continue to harm Smartmatic’s reputation.
Newsmax asserts, with the support of expert testimony, that if Smartmatic or one of its executives is charged criminally, Smartmatic will be barred – in some cases automatically – from public contracting in many jurisdictions.
CNN and other media have reported on the ongoing federal criminal bribery investigation into Smartmatic and several of its executives.
In September of 2023, CNN reported that DOJ filings allege that four Smartmatic executives who acted as co-conspirators in the criminal case allegedly “caused or attempted” to funnel $4 million to Filipino election administrator Andres Bautista “in violation of US money laundering laws.” See M. Cohen, “Smartmatic implicated in alleged bribery scheme involving top Filipino election official,” CNN (Sept. 22, 2023), available at https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/22/business/smartmatic-bribery-scheme-indictment/index.html.
CNN reported that DOJ court filings alleged that “Smartmatic executives used ‘slush funds’ and ‘fake contracts’ to facilitate alleged bribes and masked their actions with phony email accounts.”
Newsmax has also denied Smartmatic’s defamation claim in its entirety, noting that Newsmax reported fairly on the 2020 election results by providing the public with both sides of the issue.
Newsmax also asserts that the Smartmatic lawsuit poses a danger to the First Amendment and the most basic right of press freedom.
Newsmax has filed a Motion for Summary Judgment, asking the Court to dismiss in its entirety Smartmatic’s defamation lawsuit against Newsmax.
Previously, the Delaware Court ruled against Smartmatic’s motion seeking to have New York law apply to this case.
The Court ruled in Newsmax’s favor, making Florida law apply to the case. Florida law strongly protects the right of media organizations like Newsmax to neutrally report on what public figures are saying in matters of dispute, a key element of Newsmax’s defense.
Newsmax’s Motion for Summary Judgment, and Smartmatic’s Motion for Summary Judgment, are scheduled to be argued in the Delaware Superior Court on August 22, 2024.
The case is scheduled for trial to begin in late September.
