sexual assault, my ass
The essential predicate for a charge of sexual assault of an adult is a lack of consent on part of the victim. Nothing in Charlotte Waters’ original complaint, which has been modestly removed from Reddit, but happily remains available via the Wayback Machine, even begins to allege that she had failed to consent to any sexual act, any photo opportunity, or any other aspect of her modeling encounter with Terry Richardson. Interestingly enough, as any journalist ought to know, actual malice as the essential predicate of liability for libel is defined as “knowledge that the information was false” or that it was published “with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not” (New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254 (1964)). Thus in failing to align his accusation of Terry Richardson with the content of published allegations against the latter, Justin Jones acts with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not, and therefore willfully commits libel on behalf of The Daily Beast.