{"id":119029,"date":"2025-05-22T00:36:22","date_gmt":"2025-05-21T23:36:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/?p=119029"},"modified":"2025-05-22T00:36:22","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T23:36:22","slug":"court-fines-verydarkman-%e2%82%a6200000-in-falana-defamation-suit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/news\/court-fines-verydarkman-%e2%82%a6200000-in-falana-defamation-suit\/","title":{"rendered":"Court Fines VeryDarkMan \u20a6200,000 in Falana Defamation Suit"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">By Lizzy Chirkpi<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">A Lagos High Court sitting in Ikeja has ordered acclaimed social media activist, Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan (VDM), to pay a fine of \u20a6200,000. The ruling which was delivered on Tuesday, 20 May 2025 came after the court dismissed his preliminary objections to a \u20a61 billion defamation suit filed against him by renowned human rights lawyer Femi Falana (SAN) and his son, music star Folarin Falana (Falz).<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">Justice Fimisola Azeez, presiding over the case, ruled that VDM&#8217;s objections were without merit. The court imposed a fine of \u20a6100,000 each in favour of Femi Falana and Falz. Furthermore, the judge instructed VDM to immediately file his defence in the ongoing legal proceedings.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">The lawsuit is from a video VDM posted on his Instagram account on September 24, 2024. The Falanas contend that the content of the video was defamatory and caused significant damage to their reputations. Each plaintiff is seeking \u20a6500 million in damages.<\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\">During the court session, Falz was present, while his father, Femi Falana, was represented by lawyers Ernest Olawanle and Femi Akinyemi. VDM was absent from court and was represented by his counsel, Marvin Omorogbe.<\/div>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Related Posts generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Lizzy Chirkpi A Lagos High Court sitting in Ikeja has ordered acclaimed social media activist, Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan (VDM), to pay a fine of \u20a6200,000.&hellip;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Related Posts generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":119031,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.8 - 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