Billionaire Jeff Greene‘s libel suit against the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald newspapers is still on after a court-ordered mediation in the case didn’t result in a settlement.
Times attorney Alison Steele, a partner in the St. Petersburg law firm of Rahdert, Steele, Reynolds & Driscoll, told FloridaPolitics.com on Tuesday that Steele also has filed an amended complaint in his lawsuit.
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The new filing “amplified his allegations of a joint venture by the Times and Herald to derail Greene’s Senate candidacy, ” she said in an email. A call to L. Lin Wood, Greene’s Atlanta-based lawyer, was not returned.
Greene, a 60-year-old real estate developer from Palm Beach, ran as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate in 2010. The seat eventually was won by current Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, now a presidential candidate.
Greene has claimed that the newspapers derailed his Senate campaign their reporting alleged fraudulent real estate deals and wild parties on his 145-foot yacht. Democrat Kendrick Meek, a former state senator, went on to win the Democratic primary.
According to a New York Times account, one story insinuated that former boxer Mike Tyson, best man at Greene’s wedding, had used drugs on the yacht. The Times later ran a rare front-page clarification, with Tyson saying he did not use drugs on Greene’s yacht.
