Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Jury reaches no verdict in Ventura defamation case

Jesse Ventura

Jim Gehrz / The Star Tribune / AP

Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, center, arrives at court with his wife, Terry, and others Tuesday, July 22, 2014, in St. Paul, Minn.

ST. PAUL, Minn. — There's still no verdict as jurors try to decide whether a decorated military sniper libeled former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura in his best-selling memoir.

Jurors deliberated from about 9 a.m. until about 4 p.m. Wednesday before leaving the federal courthouse in St. Paul. They received the case around noon Tuesday.

The jury has posed two questions to the judge. The subjects and answers haven't been disclosed.

Ventura testified Chris Kyle invented a story in his memoir "American Sniper" about punching him in a California bar in 2006 after Ventura supposedly insulted SEALs.

Ventura's attorney asked jurors for millions of dollars in damages.

But an attorney for Kyle's estate says Ventura failed to prove Kyle made up the story or that Ventura suffered financially because of the book.

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