RALEIGH, N.C. (WGHP) — In a newly amended complaint, North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s legal team presents the possibility that incendiary forum comments, which were linked to Robinson in a bombshell CNN report, could have been planted by hackers.
Robinson, who is running as the Republican nominee for governor, initially announced the lawsuit against both CNN and a Greensboro-based musician on Oct. 15 in the wake of two September articles tying the candidate to pornography outlets.
A CNN report connects Robinson to comments, described in the suit as “lewd, sex-obsessed, racist and outrageous,” posted on the porn website NudeAfrica, and testimony from Greensboro man Louis Love Money published by The Assembly claims that Robinson frequented a Greensboro pornography store.
The amended complaint was filed on Monday, updating the requested damages from the announced $50 million to an “excess of $25,000.” According to North Carolina state law, a plaintiff in a civil case can ask for relief “in excess of” $25,000 but cannot ask for a specific sum higher than $25,000.
The amended complaint also features new information broadening Robinson’s claim against CNN.
In the complaint, Robinson’s legal team alleges that CNN “did nothing to verify the posts from NudeAfrica,” specifically claiming that CNN did not contact the owner of the website before publishing the article.
The CNN article does not address whether or not its writers attempted to reach out to the owner of NudeAfrica. According to Robinson’s legal team, the candidate’s attorneys tried to contact the owner of NudeAfrica but the owner was unresponsive.
The lawsuit also alleges that the NudeAfrica comments cited by CNN could have been planted on the site and falsely backdated by a hacker.
“CNN either knew or recklessly disregarded the fact that the NudeAfrica website used outdated and highly vulnerable software, easily exploited to plant malicious lies,” the complaint said.
The complaint outlined NudeAfrica’s use of software like Discus Pro 4.10.1 and Perl 5.016003, adding that this outdated software had previously been hacked in 2018 and the website had not changed software since.
Discus Pro 4.10 was released 18 years ago and, the complaint states, “is highly vulnerable to exploitation and manipulation, including but not limited to direct database manipulation, user impersonation, thread integration, timestamp manipulation, content generation, and log manipulation.” Perl 5.016003 is “an outdated scripting language which is beyond its end-of-life” and has not received security updates in “almost 10 years,” according to the amended complaint.
Because the website and security were outdated, Robinson’s legal team says NudeAfrica was “obviously vulnerable to manipulation” and “a hacker with rudimentary skills could create, backdate, and integrate forum posts and user accounts on NudeAfrica such as the ones CNN attributed to Lt. Gov. Robinson in the CNN Article.”
While the complaint argues that the site could have been hacked and that the account and comments could have been planted, it does not provide evidence that the obscure online porn forum had fallen victim to a security breach.
The new information in the amended complaint does not further address Money, who is a defendant in the case, or The Assembly, the political news site that published Money’s allegations. The Assembly is not a defendant in this case.
Money has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit against himself and a hearing has been set for November 18.
The full amended complaint is available below: