Roseland, New Jersey (May 13, 2025) - On May 12, 2025, the Honorable Jeffrey B. Beacham, of the Superior Court of New Jersey, granted Defendant Kennedy Agyapong’s motion to significantly reduce the $18 million dollar jury award for defamation in favor of Ghanaian investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas to $500. (Anas Aremeyaw Anas v. Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, et al., Docket No. ESX-L-002918-22) The dispute stemmed from remarks made by Agyapong, the former Ghanaian MP populist, following Anas’s 2018 BBC investigation into football corruption across Ghana and Africa.
Timothy E. Corriston, Esq. of Connell Foley, LLP, attorney for Defendant Agyapong, successfully argued that once the Court properly dismissed the claim for actual damages because Plaintiff Anas failed to establish any harm to his reputation from the alleged defamatory statements at issue, Anas could only recover presumed, nominal damages, not to exceed $500 and could not pursue a claim for punitive damages.
The Court agreed with Defendant Agyapong and entered an order molding the verdict from $18 million to $500. Additionally, the Court denied Plaintiff Anas’s motion for additur or, alternatively, a new trial on damages.
Corriston commented that “unequivocally, as a matter of law, neither actual damages nor punitive damages were available to Anas, and the Court properly reduced the jury award.”
Defendant Kennedy Agyapong was represented by Connell Foley’s Timothy E. Corriston, Esq., Christina Sartorio Ku, Esq. and Meredith Rubin, Esq. on the Motion to Mold the Jury Award and trial counsel E. Carter Corriston, Esq. of Breslin and Breslin, P.A.
Plaintiff Anas Aremeyaw Anas was represented by Andrew K. de Heer, Esq.