Cheerleader who 'won' $11m sued wrong company

A cheerleader who thought she had won $US11 million in a defamation judgment against a gossip website may have the result nullified because her lawyers sued the wrong company.

National Football League cheerleader Sarah Jones, who is also a teacher, meant to sue TheDirty.com after comments on the site in December suggested she had an affair with a player and also contracted two venereal diseases. The site is run by Scottsdale-based Dirty World LLC.



But due to a clerical error the complaint named the offending website as TheDirt.com - which is owned by Los Angeles-based Dirty World Entertainment Recordings. US District Court judge William O. Bertelsman on Wednesday ordered Los Angeles-based Dirty World Entertainment Recordings to pay $1.12 million in compensatory damages and $11.2 million in punitive damages for failing to respond to the lawsuit filed in February.

But it appears Dirty World Entertainment Recordings was incorrectly named in proceedings. Jones' attorneys should actually have been suing Dirty World LLC. TheDirty.com founder Hooman Karamian was named in the complaint but said neither he nor his company was was ever served in the case.