Gannett-owned Milford-Miami Advertiser must pay $100,000 to police officer James Young over a 2010 article accusing him of having “sex with a woman while on the job in 1997,” which Young denied, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.
The Advertiser is a local newspaper in Milford, Ohio with a circulation of about 8,000 copies, according to Mondo Times.
According to Courthouse News Service, Young had been “accused by a co-worker” of the charges, but “DNA testing” cleared him of the co-worker’s accusations that “he had ejaculated on her kitchen rug.”
Further, the newspaper’s reporter “testified that she knew that based on the documents, the DNA testing showed that the semen found on the rug … did not belong to plaintiff.” Plus, City Beat reported that Young said he wasn’t contacted before publication.