What a couple weeks it's been for Nik Richie, TheDirty.com operator who lost a high profile court case over content on his “slutshaming” website based in his hometown of Scottsdale, Arizona, flew into his current home of Orange County from Kentucky sick as a dog and now may have cost Anthony Wiener the New York mayoral race.
When it comes to the latter, Richie says he's just getting started.
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We'd been following the case of the ex-teacher/NFL cheerleader who sued Richie in federal court in Kentucky for defamation, winning a $338,000 judgment from the jury July 11.
The Dirty's Defeat in Court Could Spur “Flood” of Cases Against That and Other Sites: Analyst
Richie later apologized for being out of the captain's chair at The Dirty due to being ill for a week and a half after the verdict was read. Actually, being sick while traveling from Kentucky to Newport Beach might be a worse punishment than losing $338k. If I ever have and lose that much, I'll let you know.
Anyway, Richie jumped back into The Dirty–and the national spotlight–with his perhaps game-changing photos and revelations under the headline “EXCLUSIVE: Anthony Weiner Hasn't Changed Poor Huma Abedin, New Image Of His Penis” on Monday.
Included were lurid details about a six-month relationship on Facebook and Yahoo with a 22-year-old woman who thought Weiner loved her, exchanged explicit talk and photos with the politician and was promised a job at Politico and a condo in Chicago. Of course, the best part of Richie's report was the name Weiner used to remain anonymous: “Carlos Danger.”
OK, the real best part was the original Dirty item was posted on National Hot Dog day.
No sooner had Weiner vowed to remain in the mayor's race while his wife stood by his side defending him, Richie told The New York Times he will trickle out more information about Weiner's hot dogging.
In an interview, Mr. Richie suggested his Web site would publish new and embarrassing information about the relationship in the coming days.
The woman, Mr. Richie said, told him that during their months-long relationship, Mr. Weiner had discussed his plans to run for mayor with her, though it is unclear when that might have been.
“I have nothing against Carlos Danger,” Richie reportedly told the paper, one of three in New York that has called on Weiner to … wait for it … pull out of the race. “I'm not trying to bring this guy down.”
But bring Weiner down he has, with all the associated talk that has brought of being scummy/heroic for doing so. One suspects Richie will make that $338k back in no time.
Email: mc****@oc******.com. Twitter: @MatthewTCoker. Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.