Kim Kardashian is dealing with a lawsuit after she posted a photograph of New York resident Ivan Cantu and incorrectly recognized him because the demise row inmate in Texas bearing the identical identify.
On Feb. 26, 2024, Kardashian posted the photograph of the plaintiff to her Instagram story and wrote, in all caps, “The state will executive Ivan Cantu in 2 days,” linking to a petition “to demand that Collin County DA Greg Willis request to withdraw the execution date.”
Kardashian’s legal professional, Michael Rhodes, described the wrong photograph as a “simple mistake” in a press release.
“It was a simple mistake of using the public photo of another man with the same name to promote Kim’s longstanding commitment to the cause of criminal justice reform,” Rhodes mentioned in a press release.
“The image was taken down almost immediately once the error was discovered,” Rhodes added.
However in Ivan Cantu’s lawsuit, the plaintiff’s authorized staff mentioned the error “uncovered Cantu to hatred, contempt, and/or ridicule as a result of it falsely alleged that he dedicated a critical crime and was topic to execution.
“Kardashian published and disseminated false information about Cantu that was clearly untrue, erroneous, unfounded, shocking, scandalous, degrading, disgraceful, and/or shameful,” the lawsuit learn.
“Kardashian’s publishing and dissemination of false information about Cantu, an innocent and respectful United States citizen, subjected Cantu to public embarrassment, shame, contempt, hatred, ridicule, aversion, and/or disgrace,” the lawsuit continued.
The plaintiff is suing for libel, slander, intentional infliction of emotional misery, invasion of privateness, portraying him in a false gentle and negligence. He’s suing for damages and demanding a jury trial. The lawsuit was filed within the Superior Court docket of Los Angeles on Thursday.
Cantu’s legal professional, Greg Sobo, described the plaintiff as a “very private family man with two daughters” and mentioned he was grieving from a non-public household loss when “Kardashian defamed his reputation.”
“As a result of the Kardashian abuse, Mr. Cantu’s privacy was destroyed at a most critical and sensitive time, and he has suffered very real trauma that will last a lifetime,” Sobo mentioned.
The lawsuit signifies Cantu “suffered serious emotional damage and injury in the form of emotional and mental anguish, psychological harm, embarrassment, anxiety, loss of sleep, nightmares, post-traumatic stress, headaches, need for medical care, need for emotional counseling, and loss of reputation.”
Sobo careworn the facility of Kardashian’s huge attain on social media.
“If anyone knows the power of social media, it is Kim Kardashian. Social media helped fuel her fame. For a safer society, Kim Kardashian must be held accountable for her abuse of social media,” Sobo mentioned.
Sobo, in his assertion, added: “Mr. Cantu never wanted to litigate this issue. Our several attempts to contact Kim Kardashian and her team have been ignored.”
Kardashian’s legal professional, nonetheless, mentioned in his assertion that they might “prefer to solve this without litigation, but of course will defend Kim as needed.”
