Jury awards Bruce Pettway $7 million in defamation case against 1819 News

JEFFERSON COUNTY, Ala. (WBRC) - A jury has awarded Bruce Pettway $7 million in a defamation lawsuit against 1819 News, following a trial that began Monday and ended Friday.

Pettway is the brother of Jefferson County Sheriff Mark Pettway.

Pettway filed the defamation lawsuit in 2024 against Jefferson County GOP Chair Christopher Brown and 1819 News. The suit claimed both had done “irreparable damage” to his reputation.

According to court records filed earlier this week, Brown and Pettway have reached a settlement.

The suit stated the damage came after Brown, during a radio interview in March 2024, said Sheriff Pettway’s “brother helps to manage much of these illegal gambling operations.” The suit said 1819 News repeated the claim in a post about the interview.

A judge granted a partial summary judgment in July 2026, ruling that the comments made by Brown and repeated by 1819 News constituted defamation.

Pettway’s suit claimed the defendants knew the claims weren’t true. The suit said Brown repeated them because he was one of a series of “Republican Party operatives’ intent upon discrediting and maligning his brother, Sheriff Mark Pettway.”

Pettway’s attorneys said Brown knew the allegation wasn’t true because of a 2019 court case in which a federal judge ordered Attorney General Steve Marshall to return $240,000 he had seized from Pettway’s business after asserting the money was proceeds from illegal gambling activity.

Pettway asked the court to return the money, and the district court ruled Pettway’s filing revealed a plausible claim that “the State’s actions against the Plaintiffs were politically or personally motivated, have been procedurally tainted, were all with the intent to harass Plaintiffs, and were all in bad faith.”

The jury awarded Pettway compensatory damages for “harm to his reputation, lost business opportunities and mental anguish resulting from the defamatory statement of 1819 News.”

The jury found that 1819 News either knew the information was false or didn’t care if it was true. The jury also found that 1819 News did not retract the story when asked and determined the outlet acted with “malice” or “fraud.”

1819 News was ordered to pay $1 million for the harm caused and $6 million in punitive damages, bringing the total to $7 million.

WBRC reached out to 1819 News and Pettway’s attorneys for comment. Pettway’s attorney’s shared the following statement.

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