U. Idaho Prof Wins $10 Million Defamation Lawsuit After False Murder Accusations
“Scofield never met the students who were killed and there is no reason to believe she played any role.”
Given who made the accusations, the verdict in this case is not surprising at all.
The College Fix reports:
U. Idaho professor wins $10 million defamation lawsuit after false murder accusations
A federal jury awarded a University of Idaho professor $10 million after a TikTok psychic falsely accused her of playing a role in the grisly murder of four students.
The recent decision in favor of Professor Rebecca Scofield follows accusations made by Ashley Guillard in 2022.
Guillard (pictured) posts videos on social media website TikTok where she claims to solve murders using tarot cards and other psychic methods. Her videos have racked up millions of views, according to the lawsuit. She calls herself a “clairvoyant” and is “blessed with the ability to access and interpret information from the universal consciousness,” according to her website.
She accused Scofield of having an affair with one of the students murdered and then orchestrating the murders to cover up what happened.
Scofield never met the students who were killed and there is no reason to believe she played any role.
Since the gruesome murders in 2022, police identified Bryan Kohberger as the main suspect.
As the Idaho State Police reports:
On December 30, 2022, Bryan Kohberger was arrested and later charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of felony burglary. Following his conviction, the case was fully adjudicated on July 23, 2025. He pled guilty and was sentenced to four fixed life terms to run consecutively without the possibility of parole, as well as a fixed term of 10 years for the burglary.
The case generation significant national attention, including several documentaries.
The murder also prompted a related lawsuit against Washington State University, as The College Fix recently reported.
Kohberger was a Ph.D. student in criminology and a teaching assistant at WSU, located not far from Moscow, Idaho, where the crime was committed.
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Comments
Now imagine if an AI had made the same accusation.
Which has in fact already happened (though not a murder).
This case is a lonely ember of justice in a darkening society where increasingly no one is ever punished for anything.
Good to see a tik tok parasite get their comeuppance.
She will likely now claim disability due to a tik-born illness drum: *ba dum chi*
Actually it does surprise me. My understanding of defamation law was that conclusions are inherently opinions, and you can be sued not for the conclusion itself but only for the factual statements that it implies.
So if I were to say that Chuck Schumer is a serial killer, that’s an opinion and not in itself actionable, but anyone hearing me will understand that I wouldn’t say that if I didn’t know some facts that would lead me to that conclusion, so he can sue me for that. I haven’t stated these facts openly, so a listener wouldn’t know exactly what they are, but they know they must exist and must be incriminating.
But if I state exactly what led me to the conclusion, and make it clear that there are no other facts that I’m keeping quiet, then it’s not actionable. So if I were to say that Chuck Schumer is a serial killer because he’s a Democrat and all Democrats are potential murderers, and because he has a face that only a serial killer would have, so he must be one, then my understanding is that that would not be actionable, because all I’ve stated is an opinion, and there are no implied factual statements behind it.
So I’m surprised that this lunatic was held liable. No one hearing her would think that she had any factual knowledge. She was open that her accusations were based entirely on her delusions. So how was this actionable?
I believe stated as fact doesn’t require that you state your basis to be defamatory. You can’t hide behind your opinion without stating that it is only such.
If someone overtly expresses an opinion, then that is a different story.