Nancy Grace has been slapped with a defamation lawsuit.
According to KDVR, Benjamin Seibert filed the lawsuit against the talk show host in a Denver court on Monday, stating that she had continued to implicate him in the crime even after he had been cleared of any wrongdoing. She also aired his photograph for the entire nation to see, earning him the nickname “selfie stalker.”
The incident Grace was referring to on her show occurred in Denver, Colorado in February 2014. A woman put her children to bed and then proceeded to check her cell phone, where she found a picture of Seibert. She assumed that the man had broken into her house and taken the photo and called the police.
Unknowingly to the woman, Seibert’s photo had actually been added to her phone through her Facebook app, and Seibert was working in California at the time of the alleged incident.
One of Seibert’s friends contacted him after his photo was shown on the media, and Seibert immediately called the police and told them where he was located and they cleared his name from being associated with the home invasion.
However, despite being exonerated, Nancy and the organization Crime Stoppers continued to associate Seibert with the crime and circulate his photograph, even labeling him a serial killer. Seibert has called the incident humiliating and said that Grace and Crime Stoppers have ruined his name.
“It hasn’t been easy for him as a result of this,” Seibert’s attorney John Pineau said during a recent interview.
Seibert and Pineau are hoping that other people will come forward stating that Grace has wrongly implicated them of a crime. “We are interested based on the history of the research we’ve uncovered – we’re pretty confident there are other victims – and so we’re asking for other victims to come forward,” Pinea said.