Nevada district court judge Mark Denton awarded casino mogul Steve Wynn $7.5 million in a defamation suit against Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis Wednesday. The damages were awarded after Wynn testified in a ‘prove up hearing,’ to where a lawsuit goes uncontested. Francis had tried to seek a continuance in the case, to retain a new attorney, but Wynn’s lawyers were able to get the case through regardless, and won a civil judgement against francis last November.
The two moguls have been in court for years, after Francis failed to pay a $2.5 million gambling debt Wynn claims Francis racked up in his casino. Joe Francis, once-reigning “Douche of the Decade,” initially won a criminal case concerning the casino debt, but then went after Wynn in a civil suit, for Malicious Prosecution, Abuse of Process, Intentional Misrepresentation, Defamation, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress and Conspiracy, according to PRN. Francis had threatened to expose “how exactly Mr. Wynn deceives his high end customers,” according to Wynn’s complaint. Wynn went on to clarify that he’d never mentioned to “hit (Francis) in the back of the head with a shovel, and bury (him) in the desert,” as Francis had told TMZ in April 2010.
The court awarded Wynn $5 million in compensatory and $2.5 million in punitive damages, which disproves Francis’ claims about being buried in the desert. Francis’ lawyer, David Houston, says “we will appeal this order. Joe was not allowed to defend himself,” referring to the prove-up hearing, according to TMZ.
Francis has recently tried to block a portion of Madonna’s Superbowl halftime show, as she’d planned to sing a song called “Girls Gone Wild,” citing that “(I) and Girls Gone Wild have worked tirelessly for an excess of two decades to build his brand and to protect his trademark Girls Gone Wild.”
I find the story of a soft-core porn mogul and “Douche of the Decade” honoree, attempting to sue a 53-year-old pop star for wanting to sing about how we should let girls gone wild, at the Superbowl, to be a very quaint and joyous slice of modern Americana.