Seafarer Awarded $5 Million Defamation Verdict TA
Post# of 7795
Seafarer Awarded $5 Million Defamation Verdict
TAMPA, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Seafarer Exploration Corp. (OTCBB: SFRX.ob - News ) announced a Hillsborough County Jury rendered a verdict on April 5 th 2011 at 4:45 pm in favor of Seafarer for $5,080,000.00 in compensatory damages. After two days of evidence had been presented in court, a jury determined that hundreds of on line posts written by Sean Murphy under the screen name of "Floridatreasurecapt" were false and caused a decrease in market price. Seafarer believes collecting any or all of the damages will be difficult to do, but will continue to try to collect until paid in full.
One of the Board Directors for Seafarer, Pelle Ojasu, stated, "We are pleased with the verdict rendered by the jury and I am very happy our CEO maintained his vigilance to prosecute those who would maliciously hurt the Company and its' personnel through relentless false postings over the last year. Now that the truth has finally come out, we can continue our focus on building shareholder value and executing our business plan." Lead trial attorney, Craig A. Huffman stated, "Mr. Murphy is going to be an example of what should happen to people who sit behind screen names and negatively, falsely, impinge the lives of people and of good companies. We are not done with him yet. This will set a precedent for small market companies to fight back." Co-counsel, David Chalela, stated, "We and our client are weighing the approach to take toward punitive damages in this case to dissuade others from doing this."