Mark Robinson Files Frivolous Lawsuit Against CNN and a Local Musician
This week, a gubernatorial candidate filed a defamation lawsuit against a major news outlet and a private citizen. The suit will likely fail, but not before causing headaches for the defendants.
In September, CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski reported that North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, currently the Republican nominee for governor, had made several bewildering and offensive comments over the years on the internet forum Nude Africa. According to the CNN report, Robinson—who is African American—yearned for the reinstitution of slavery, called himself “a black Nazi,” and detailed his outré sexual practices and appetites.
Robinson denied the reporting and vowed to remain in the gubernatorial race. This week, nearly a month after the article was posted and just three weeks before the general election, Robinson filed a defamation lawsuit against CNN and Louis Love Money, lead singer of the North Carolina–based band Trailer Park Orchestra.
Money was the main source for a September 2024 article in the North Carolina online magazine The Assembly that alleged “Robinson was a frequent customer in the 1990s and early 2000s” of several 24-hour porn shops where Money worked, coming in “as often as five nights a week to watch porn videos in a private booth.” Money further claimed to have sold Robinson “hundreds” of bootleg porn videos on the side and said Robinson still owes him $25 for one.
The previous month, Trailer Park Orchestra had released a music video for their song “The Lt. Governor Owes Me Money.” Reached for comment about the lawsuit, Money told Reason via social media message, “I hope it gets Trailer Park Orchestra another 10,000 views on YouTube. That’s my statement lol.”
In the lawsuit, Robinson contends that he was not a customer of the porn shop but instead “worked at Papa John’s pizza” nearby and “would occasionally bring over free pizza and socialize” with Money. The lawsuit suggests that the music video, The Assembly article, and the CNN report are all related. “Within weeks of this then-obscure, barely-viewed Music Video being published,” it says, Money “was interviewed by a major online publication with links to George Soros” and made “false allegations” about Robinson. “We’re not sure where that claim is coming from,” Kyle Villemain, cofounder of The Assembly, told public radio station WUNC, saying the publication receives no funding from Soros.
“Sixteen days after the Assembly Article,” the lawsuit cont
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