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Case 18-2868, Document 279, 08/09/2019, 2628231, Page24 of 37 inconsistent and shifting sex abuse story and her increasingly lurid allegations against more and more prominent individuals. And they would have understood that these characteristics of a storyteller undermine her credibility and ergo the credibility of her new allegations. In its 12(b)(6) order the Court said the three sentences have the effect of denying plaintiff's story but “they also clearly constitute fact to the reader.” The ruling is affected in two ways by the Rule 56 record. Based on the foregoing discussion of the evidence, the three sentences clearly constitute (argumentative) opinions of Mr. Barden on behalf of Ms. Maxwell. Though the Court did not discuss who is “the reader,” this is important in Steinhilber Factor 4.” Under settled defamation-opinion law, an allegedly defamatory statement is to be viewed “from the perspective of the audience to whom it is addressed.” Dibella v. Hopkins, No. 01 CIV. 11779 (DC), 2002 WL 31427362, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 30, 2002). Here, “the reader” is six to thirty journalists. They could not have read the July 2015 statement—or the three allegedly defamatory sentences—the same way it was read by these journalists’ audience, i.e., the general public. This is because, as plaintiff implicitly concedes, these journalists only republished excerpts—and not the entirety of the statement, which would have given context to the three sentences. It is axiomatic that an out-of-context republication of the three sentences—without the rest of the statement—would deprive the reader of the logic and reasoning behind the opinionated conclusion that plaintiff was making “untrue” allegations and telling “obvious lies.” 19

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Filename DocumentCloud_Epstein_Docs_p00806.png
File Size 245.9 KB
OCR Confidence 94.7%
Has Readable Text Yes
Text Length 1,744 characters
Indexed 2026-02-04 12:26:24.799777