Hearst Television and WLWT Channel 5 defamed a woman and invaded her privacy by repeatedly showing her picture and name on sexually suggestive stories and Internet postings featuring obscene cell phone “sexting,” she claims in Hamilton County Court.
“Sexting refers to the act of sending sexually explicit messages or photos electronically between cell phones,” according to the complaint. Joanna Arugus says learned of WLWT’s use of her name “in this scandalous, and often criminal, context without her authorization” when a family member told her he saw her name on a Channel 5 newscast showing a cell phone with a sexually suggestive text message.
Arugus said a station employee told her WLWT used her name and wrote the message on a cell phone to have video for the story. Arugus is a grant writer for nonprofits and a medical editor who is self-employed under her own name.
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Related: Complaint (pdf)