A federal judge ruled for the publishers of InTouch Weekly and the National Enquirer in Judge Judy Sheindlin’s defamation lawsuit. On April 16, 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida granted summary judgment to A360 Media and Accelerate360, finding that Sheindlin had not produced clear and convincing evidence of actual malice. The court said the reports wrongly identified alternate juror Judi Zamos as Sheindlin, but held that the serious reporting error did not meet the legal standard for a public-figure defamation claim.
What did the reports say?
An InTouch Weekly article published online on April 10, 2024, carried the headline “Inside Judge Judy’s Quest to Save the Menendez Brothers Nearly 35 Years After Their Parents’ Murder.” A version later appeared in the National Enquirer. The stories attributed to Sheindlin comments that the Menendez brothers had been railroaded and that their trial was “rigged,” and said she supported efforts to secure a retrial or resentencing.
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Sheindlin said she had not commented on the case. The court’s order states that she never attended the Menendez trial and never appeared in the Fox Nation docuseries. The court found that the woman seen making the comments was Judi Zamos, an alternate juror from the brothers’ first trial—not Sheindlin.
How did the misidentification happen?
The court’s account describes a chain of missed checks. An A360 reporter watched a promotional clip featuring an older woman discussing the trial and assumed she was Sheindlin. Fox later provided a longer clip that briefly showed the name “Judi Zamos.” The reporter testified that he missed the caption while looking down to transcribe the audio.
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- The reporter did not search for Sheindlin’s name alongside the Menendez brothers or contact her representatives for comment.
- The editor approved the story without watching the linked clip.
The court treated the identification as a genuine, serious mistake. It did not find that the evidence showed the publishers knew the identification was false or recklessly disregarded that possibility.
What did the court decide?
The case, Sheindlin v. Accelerate360, LLC and A360 Media, LLC, Case No. 2:24-cv-553-KCD-NPM, was decided by the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. On April 16, 2026, Judge Kyle C. Dudek granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment and directed the clerk to enter judgment and close the case.
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Because the parties agreed that Sheindlin was a public figure and that Florida defamation law applied, she had to establish actual malice with clear and convincing evidence. In this context, actual malice means that a publisher knew a statement was false or recklessly disregarded whether it was true. The court said negligence, a failure to investigate, poor journalism, or a profit motive alone did not meet that threshold on this record.
The ruling was a summary judgment decision, not a jury verdict. It resolved the case because the court found the evidence insufficient to satisfy the required legal standard, despite the reporting failures it described.
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Why the court distinguished bad reporting from actual malice
The court sharply criticized the reporting while applying the constitutional protection that governs public-figure defamation claims. Judge Dudek wrote: “The First Amendment provides breathing space for the press, protecting it even when it makes embarrassing and careless mistakes.” The order also stated: “But again, crappy journalism does not equal actual malice.”
Those comments capture the difference at the center of the decision: a publication can make a serious, avoidable error without the evidence proving that it published a false claim knowingly or with reckless disregard for its truth. The court concluded that the evidence in this case showed the former, not the latter.
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Key dates and case status
- April 10, 2024: The disputed InTouch Weekly story first appeared online, according to the Associated Press.
- May 13, 2024: Sheindlin filed her lawsuit in Collier County, Florida, according to the Associated Press.
- April 16, 2026: The federal district court granted summary judgment to A360 Media and Accelerate360 and ordered the case closed.
The district-court order establishes that result. The sources cited here do not establish whether a later appeal changed it, so this account does not characterize the ruling as the final appellate outcome.
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Sources
- U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Sheindlin v. Accelerate360, LLC et al., Document 114, April 16, 2026.
- Associated Press, “‘Judge Judy’ Sheindlin sues for defamation over National Enquirer, InTouch Weekly stories,” May 13, 2024.
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