A jury verdict delivered on Monday assigns $75,000 in compensatory damages alongside $125,000 in punitive damages for each of the two statements in question, and for both plaintiffs—Yaacov Apelbaum and his firm XRVision. The following is an excerpt from the July ruling that permits the case to move forward (Apelbaum v. Bloom):
Yaacov Apelbaum is the founder of XRVision, Ltd., a cybersecurity and analytics company. Plaintiffs Apelbaum and XRVision … attracted media attention in 2020 for their role in examining Hunter Biden’s laptop computer, purportedly “analyz[ing] the contents” of a copy of the hard drive “to determine the legitimacy of the [l]aptop.”
[Defendant] Jordan Arthur Bloom … is an independent journalist who maintains a blog on the platform Substack. On January 29, 2024, Defendant published an article, “The Role of Yaacov Apelbaum in the Hunter Biden Drama” (“First Article”)…. The alleged defamatory statements in the First Article include:
- “Yaacov Apelbaum is an Israeli spy, and the sort of Israeli spy who would have good reasons to smear American facial recognition technology, because his company, XRVision, is a competitor.” [Emphasis in complaint.]
- “XRVision has provided sourcing to a bunch of conservative publications, including the Washington Times. So this is an Israeli spy who’s deeply involved in shaping the Hunter Biden story.” [Emphasis in complaint.] …
These statements were published on Defendant’s Substack and also to thousands of viewers on Twitter and other platforms, then were “subsequently and virally” republished on other websites. Defendant intentionally failed to conduct any investigation before publishing these statements and “made zero effort to contact Plaintiffs to seek out their knowledge or position to include in his article.” …
Plaintiffs sued, and the court allowed the case to go forward:
[i.] Plaintiffs set forth an actionable statement (defamation per se)….
A statement is deemed defamation per se [and thus actionable without proof of tangible loss -EV] if, among other things, it “prejudice[s] such person in his or her profession or trade.” Defendant contends that being identified as an Israeli spy is not inherently damaging to one’s business reputation.
At this procedural stage, the Court must accept as true the factual allegations presented by Plaintiffs, and those claims overcome any doubt about the natural impact on reputation. The complaint argues that Plaintiffs operate in the cybersecurity sector and that they “periodically work[ ] with the [United States] government” in this field. The Court concludes that allegations tying a cybersecurity professional and his firm to a foreign intelligence agency could prejudice their professional standing and commercial prospects.
[And a]t this stage, the Court must credit the Plaintiffs’ well pleaded assertion of the statements’ factual falsity. The complaint asserts that the statements are factually false, citing that “Mr. Apelbaum [has] renounced his Israeli citizenship and is presently a citizen of the United States of America, only,” that “Mr. Apelbaum is not a foreign agent,” and that Defendant “conceived a storyline in advance of any adequate investigation and then consciously set out to insert Plaintiffs into his preconceived narratives.” …
[ii.] Actual [m]alice …
[B]ecause Plaintiffs have alleged actual malice, the Court does not need to determine at this stage whether they are public figures.
Actual malice requires “knowledge that [the statement] was false or … reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.” Contrary to Bloom’s position, the complaint presents numerous assertions that go to actual malice: that Bloom merely relied on tropes and his own pre-existing bigotry and biases, devoid of facts, and he knowingly sought to harm, and did harm, the Plaintiffs,” that he “deliberately avoided conducting any investigation into Plaintiffs and made zero effort to contact Plaintiffs,” that he “has a history of writing anti-Semitic articles that accuse Jews and Israel of manipulating and/or controlling the U.S. government,” and that his “publications and pattern of publishing are evidence that he conceived a storyline in advance of any adequate investigation and then consciously set out to insert Plaintiffs into his preconceived narratives as discussed throughout the Complaint.” …
Other cases have recognized actual malice in similarly situated situations. In a defamation dispute where the plaintiff was accused by media outlets of orchestrating violence at the “Unite The Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, the plaintiff was able to allege that “Defendants ‘twisted’ elements of his personal and professional history to fit a pre-conceived narrative.” Gilmore v. Jones (W.D. Va. 2019). There, as in this case, the defendant allegedly forced the statements into a preconceived “storyline” and departed from even the most basic journalistic standards by, for example, failing to contact the plaintiff. Accordingly, the plaintiffs’ assertions of Bloom’s lack of due diligence and his forcing of their actions into a prearranged narrative about Israelis and Jews are sufficient to plead actual malice….
Timothy Hyland and Jamie Michelle Hertz (Hyland Law PLLC) and John C. Burns (Burns Law Firm) represent Plaintiffs.
