Man Claims Sports Blog Defamed Him

NEWARK (CN) - A man claims that the popular blog Barstoolsports.com defamed him by publishing his name and photo in a story under the headline "Jersey City Pedophile Loses His $4 Million Lotto Ticket, Sues the Whole World."

Isaac Mendez sued Barstoolsports.com pro se in Essex County Court.

After Mendez filed his lawsuit, the blog posted a retraction, stating that the original story had been posted as a joke.

Mendez claims the Dec. 6, 2010 article used a picture of him that "was plagiarized from NJ.com," a website that posts New Jersey news stories culled from mainline newspapers.

Mendez says NJ.com "did not post the defamatory headline or article," but had posted a Jersey Journal newspaper article about a lawsuit he filed involving a lottery dispute.

The NJ.com article reported Mendez's claim that he had bought a winning lottery ticket but lost it on a subway, and that the winnings were wrongfully claimed by a brother and sister. Mendez then sued the state, alleging a host of injuries.

However, "The article published on the domain barstoolsports.com states the plaintiff is a pedophile, a rapist, a kid toucher, and a pederass [sic]," according to Mendez's complaint.

He claims: "The defamatory article was published on the internet just forty (40) minutes after NJ.com published on the Internet the Jersey Journal news story published on December 6, 2010. The Barstoo1sports.com article is false, vicious, vile, offensive, and is clearly intended to assassinate the plaintiff's character in the view of the public."

Mendez's lawsuit is date-stamped Dec. 5.

Barstool Sports posted a retraction on its website on Dec. 14, stating: "A year ago I wrote a blog about Isaac Mendez who was suing the NJ Lottery for a lost lotto ticket. The headline of the blog at the time was "Jersey City Pedophile Loses His $4 Million Lotto Ticket, Sues The World." In the first paragraph I clearly state that I was being satirical in nature with that description of Mr. Mendez. In no way did I intend to infer that Isaac Mendez was ever accused of any deviant behavior or has any criminal record of any sort. For anybody who misunderstood the satirical nature of that blog please excuse the inconvenience."

Too late, Mendez says. He seeks $100 million in damages for defamation, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

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