New York Times loses defamation suit, ordered to pay $9.25M to former Alabama basketball player

The New York Times was defeated in a defamation lawsuit Thursday brought by a former college basketball player and ordered to pay millions in damages.

An Alabama jury ruled the Times defamed Kai Spears, then an 18-year-old freshman walk-on basketball player for the University of Alabama's Crimson Tide, who was swept up in a 2023 report linking him to a fatal shooting.

After a nine-day trial, the eight-person jury determined that Spears was owed $9.25 million in damages.

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