Sarah Palin has hired the same lawyers for her lawsuit against the New York Times who helped win a $140 million jury verdict last year against the website Gawker on behalf of Hulk Hogan.
Palin’s lawyers — Kenneth G. Turkel and Shane B. Vogt of the Tampa, Fla. law firm of Bajo Cuva Cohen & Turkel — were part of a team of lawyers who won a privacy case against Gawker and its founder Nick Denton.
The huge verdict helped push Gawker and its founder Nick Denton into bankruptcy, and Gawker ended up paying $31 million to settle the case, abandoning its appeal.
Palin, a former Alaska governor and vice presidential running mate with Sen. John McCain in 2008, filed a libel lawsuit against the New York Times on Tuesday.
Her lawsuit alleges that the newspaper published a false and defamatory editorial incorrectly linking one of her political action committee mailings to the 2011 near-fatal shooting of Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona.
Hogan brought an invasion of privacy and right of publicity lawsuit against Gawker for posting excerpts of a secretly filmed sex tape of Hogan.
After the trial, it was revealed that Hogan’s lawyers had been quietly bankrolled by Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel.
Thiel backed Hogan to get back at Gawker for publishing a 2007 story on one of its blogs that outed Thiel as gay.
There is no indication that Palin’s lawsuit is being bankrolled by a third party. Palin’s lawsuit does not specify the amount of damages she seeks.
Turkel and Vogt did not immediately respond to a request for comment by TheWrap.
Beverly Hills lawyer Charles Harder, another lead lawyer on the Hogan legal team, is not listed as a lawyer for Palin in her Palin v. New York Times lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court in New York.