Jury Hits 1819 News with $7M Defamation Verdict

TL;DR: A Jefferson County jury ordered 1819 News to pay Bruce Pettway $7 million after finding the outlet acted with malice or fraud when it published a false claim tying him to illegal gambling operations. The verdict included $1 million in compensatory damages and $6 million in punitive damages.

A Jefferson County jury has awarded Birmingham businessman Bruce Pettway $7 million in his defamation case against 1819 News, delivering a major verdict in a lawsuit that dates back nearly two years.

The jury returned its verdict Friday after a trial that began Monday, according to WBRC. Pettway is the brother of Jefferson County Sheriff Mark Pettway.

The jury awarded Pettway $1 million in compensatory damages for harm to his reputation, lost business opportunities and mental anguish. It added another $6 million in punitive damages against 1819 News.

The verdict followed a key ruling earlier this summer that had already settled one major part of the case. In July, a Jefferson County judge granted Pettway partial summary judgment, finding that the statements at the heart of the lawsuit constituted “defamation per se as a matter of law,” WBRC reported at the time.

That left the jury to consider damages and other issues, including the conduct of 1819 News.

According to WBRC, the jury found that 1819 News either knew the information it published was false or did not care whether it was true. Jurors also found that the outlet failed to retract the story after being asked to do so and acted with “malice” or “fraud.”

Pettway filed the lawsuit in October 2024 against 1819 News and then-Jefferson County Republican Party Chairman Christopher Brown.

The case grew out of comments Brown made during a March 2024 radio interview while discussing illegal gambling in Jefferson County.

Brown said Sheriff Pettway’s “brother helps to manage much of these illegal gambling operations.”

1819 News then published Brown’s allegation.

Pettway maintained the claim was false and caused “irreparable damage” to his reputation. His lawsuit accused Brown and 1819 News of spreading a false accusation that effectively alleged he was involved in criminal activity.

The original complaint identified Pettway as the owner of Employer Benefits Consulting LLC and said the defendants had damaged a reputation he had spent decades building.

According to Alabama Political Reporter’s coverage when the lawsuit was filed, Pettway’s attorneys also sent cease-and-desist letters demanding that the statements be retracted.

The lawsuit alleged Brown later acknowledged that he had “no knowledge or evidence that Mr. Bruce Pettway is a ‘Manager’ of any unlawful gambling operations in Jefferson County.”

Brown was originally a co-defendant in the case. However, according to court records cited by WBRC, Brown and Pettway reached a settlement before the case against 1819 News went to the jury. The terms of that settlement were not disclosed in WBRC’s report.

The case also reached back to a years-old legal fight between Pettway and Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall over money seized from Pettway’s business account during a gambling investigation.

In 2019, the Attorney General’s Office froze an account containing about $240,000. Pettway acknowledged that his company had received about $15,500 for consulting work involving a bingo operation but disputed the State’s attempt to freeze the entire account.

As Alabama Daily News reported at the time, U.S. District Judge Karon Bowdre sharply questioned the State’s forfeiture action. The State ultimately agreed to release more than $200,000 and narrowed its claim to the roughly $15,500 linked to the consulting work.

Bowdre wrote that Pettway had plausibly alleged that the State’s actions were politically or personally motivated, procedurally tainted, intended to harass the plaintiffs and carried out in bad faith.

The later federal litigation did not end entirely in Pettway’s favor. In 2020, Bowdre dismissed his federal claims against Marshall on qualified-immunity grounds, and the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that decision in 2022.

But that history became significant in Pettway’s defamation case because his attorneys argued that Brown and 1819 News had reason to know the sweeping claim that Pettway helped manage illegal gambling operations was false.

Pettway’s lawsuit went further, alleging that the statements were part of an effort by Republican political operatives to damage Sheriff Mark Pettway, a Democrat who became Jefferson County’s first Black elected sheriff in 2018.

That assertion was Pettway’s allegation in the lawsuit, not a finding by the jury.

What the jury did find Friday was that 1819 News bore substantial financial responsibility for publishing the defamatory statement.

The $7 million award consists of $1 million to compensate Pettway for the damage the jury found he suffered and $6 million meant to punish the conduct at issue.

As of WBRC’s Friday report, the station said it had contacted 1819 News for comment. No response from the outlet was included in the report.

The verdict may not be the final word in the case. Post-trial motions or an appeal could still challenge the judgment or the size of the damages award.