Chandra Johnson Greene of the Stamford Patch reports that a libel lawsuit against freelance business journalist Teri Buhl and CNBC.com writer John Carney is headed to a judge in May.
Greene writes, “According to the suit, filed in January in state Superior Court in Stamford, Mitchell Vazquez is seeking $15,000 in monetary damages and $100,000 in punitive damages from Teri Buhl and the New York-based television network.
“The suit alleges Buhl posted a story on her blog in December containing ‘false and defamatory’ statements. The post, dated Dec. 30, 2011, and updated on Jan. 5, accused Vazquez of violating orders given by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission following an investigation into his company’s trading practices between 1999 and 2001. In addition, Buhl wrote that Vazquez might have traded under his girlfriend Pamela Mercedes Chiesi’s name in 2009 to get around the CFTC’s orders and ‘[lied] to… clients about the value of some derivative contracts’ while serving as a trader for Bankers Trust in 1996.
“Also according to the complaint, John Carney, a senior editor at NBC Universal-owned CNBC.com, published an online article on Jan. 6 urging readers to read Buhl’s post about Vazquez and provided a hyperlink to her site. ‘I don’t want to steal Buhl’s thunder, so click on her report for the big reveal,’ Carney wrote.
“Carney did not respond to a request for comment.”
Read more here.
