A multiyear defamation lawsuit sparked by a ProPublica article officially ended on Jan. 24, marking a final victory in the case for its author, freelance journalist William D. Cohan. A New York state appeals court had ruled in his favor in 2023, and the state’s highest court left that ruling in place in September 2024, declining to hear an appeal. The plaintiff ultimately agreed to pay Cohan certain defense costs and did not pursue a long-shot appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. With that, the parties concluded the case.
The suit stemmed from a July 2020 article written by Cohan titled “The Bizarre Fall of the CEO of Coach and Kate Spade’s Parent Company.” Jide Zeitlin, the subject of the article, sued Cohan in 2021, claiming that he was defamed by the story. The article chronicled Zeitlin’s “improbable” rise from modest circumstances as the son of a Nigerian maid to becoming a Goldman Sachs partner and Fortune 500 CEO. It also examined his downfall, as allegations of an extramarital affair with a woman he photographed helped lead to his resignation from Tapestry, the corporation that owns Coach and other prominent brands.
As ProPublica previously reported, the state appeals court found that the article “flatly contradicts the existence of actual malice,” the standard of proof that a public figure must meet to win a libel suit. The appeals court credited the fact that Cohan cited Zeitlin’s denials in the article, provided links to original documents so that readers could judge for themselves and relied on a “host of other sources whose reliability plaintiff does not challenge.” As the opinion put it, “plaintiff’s allegations of actual malice rest largely on his own statements.”
“This is a great victory for diligent journalism in the public interest,” said Jeremy Kutner, ProPublica’s general counsel. “We are thrilled that the courts reaffirmed protections for freedom of the press at a time when that is more important than ever.”
Jay Ward Brown and Emmy Parsons of Ballard Spahr LLP represented Cohan and ProPublica.
