By Debbie Gregory.
In a memoir published Monday, Taya Kyle describes the lawsuit won by Jesse Ventura as “sort of torture,” expresses amazement she lost the case, and said the money the jury awarded Ventura wiped out all the income her estate had made on her late husband’s bestselling book, “American Sniper.”
Taya Kyle, widow of “American Sniper” author and former US Navy Seal Chris Kyle”has penned her own memoir, “American Wife.” While the book mostly deals with the relationship with her late husband, Chris, and the aftermath of his 2013 murder, she also addresses Jesse Ventura’s defamation trial. Because Taya Kyle is the executor of her husband’s estate, she named as the defendant after her husband’s death
Ventura sued Chris Kyle for defamation after Kyle told a story in his book “American Sniper” about a confrontation he had with someone he called “Scruff Face,” who made a statement about Navy SEALs, saying that they “deserve to lose a few.” Kyle claimed that he “laid him out,”
Ventura claimed that Taya Kyle wouldn’t have to pay a dime of the award because it would be covered by an insurance company. But the insurance company would only cover $500,000 of the judgement, leaving the estate responsible for $1.3 million.
“Paying off the verdict would take all that we made from the book, and more,” she wrote. The verdict has been appealed to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Ventura has stated that he “refused to settle because to me it wasn’t about the money, it was about the truth.” If that were truly the case, it would be wise of him to donate the money, possibly to a military charity, rather than put it in his pocket.
Taya Kyle wrote that “a parade of witnesses” testified to “parts of Chris’ version of events” and she was certain the jury would side with her: “The accounts differed slightly, which of course makes sense: No two people ever remember things that happened six years later the same.”
She was “stunned,” she wrote, when she learned the jury, on an 8-2 vote, sided with Ventura, and wondered if the verdict would have been different if the trial were not in St. Paul, “where Ventura’s portrait hangs in the State Capitol.”
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Military Connection: Another Loss for Taya Kyle: By Debbie Gregory
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