VAN NUYS — A judge today confirmed an arbitrator’s award of nearly $1.4 million to a businessman who sued Reggie Bush for defamation after having settled a previous suit against the former Heisman Trophy winner and USC running back.
Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Eric Harmon heard arguments in plaintiff Lloyd Lake’s petition, briefly took the issues under submission and issued his final ruling later in the day Wednesday. According to Lake’s petition, arbitrator Jeffrey G. Benz on April 12 awarded him $500,000, plus $764,640 in attorneys’ fees and about $116,780 in costs.
Bush’s attorneys argued that the award should be vacated, saying the amount exceeded Benz’s authority.
Bush, now 40, resolved the first suit in 2010 with Lake, who claimed he provided Bush with cash and other benefits while Bush played for the Trojans in 2004 and 2005. Lake’s initial case alleged breach of contract.
Lake, along with his parents — Roy and Barbara Gunner, who are both in their 80s — then sued Bush again in Van Nuys Superior court in February 2023, this time for defamation. Bush filed a motion to compel arbitration of the second suit, abiding by what he said were the terms of the accord in the first suit requiring that an arbitrator and not a jury decide any future claims.
In June 2024, Judge Valerie Salkin ruled in Bush’s favor, finding that Lake’s second suit claims were “plainly covered by the settlement’s broad arbitration provision.”
But the judge also ruled that Lake’s parents’ part of the case should go before a jury.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys argued in their court papers that the arbitration clause only applied to contractual disputes. The same lawyers attached to their court papers an image of two sides of a wall separating a gate outside the Gunner home.
On one side of the wall someone used spray paint to scrawl “187,” possibly referring to murder under the state Penal Code, while the other side of the walls is defaced to state, “Help Reggie Bush Get His Trophy Back (epithet) Crook.”
The plaintiffs’ attorneys blamed the graffiti on “unknown bad actors on behalf of or at the direction of Bush criminal” and they further state in their court papers that Bush “created a firestorm of vitriol that now has engulfed Lake’s parents.”
The current suit alleges Bush defamed Lake and the Gunners with remarks he made on YouTube in September 2023 and on Twitter three months later. In the YouTube interview, Bush allegedly said, among other things, that Lake was trying to blackmail him and that Lake had a police record as long as a Cheesecake Factory menu. Both statements are untrue, according to the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ court papers.
On Twitter, Bush allegedly referred to Lake as a “convicted felon who was in prison for rape,” an allegation the plaintiffs’ attorneys state in their court papers was “false and without any substance.”
Lake and the Gunners have suffered severe emotional distress and financial harm, the current suit states.
In addition to winning the 2005 Heisman Trophy, Bush also won the 2005 Doak Walker and Walter Camp awards.
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