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By Sean O'Driscoll
Senior Crime and Courts Reporter
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Hunter Biden should be aware of all the negative publicity that will surround his revenge porn lawsuit against Fox News, an attorney has warned.
President Joe Biden's son is suing Fox News under New York's revenge porn law, which prohibits the dissemination of sex scenes involving real people. The law was designed to stop people from distributing private sex videos without a person's consent.
Biden is using this law to sue Fox for a six-part series in 2022 titled The Trial of Hunter Biden. The series featured a "mock trial" centered around the overseas financial dealings that led to Biden's federal tax indictment and helped fuel the House impeachment inquiry into his father.
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The network removed the program on Fox News' streaming platform, Fox Nation in April.
As part of the lawsuit, Hunter Biden alleges Fox News violated New York Civil Rights Law Sec 52-b, which covers revenge porn, by featuring intimate video footage and still images depicting him in the nude and engaged in sex acts, according to court documents filed in a New York court on June 30.
Fox News said in a statement to Newsweek that the "entirely politically motivated lawsuit is devoid of merit."
"The core complaint stems from a 2022 streaming program that Mr. Biden did not complain about until sending a letter in late April 2024.
"The program was removed within days of the letter, in an abundance of caution, but Hunter Biden is a public figure who has been the subject of multiple investigations and is now a convicted felon.
"Consistent with the First Amendment, FOX News has accurately covered the newsworthy events of Mr. Biden's own making, and we look forward to vindicating our rights in court."
Newsweek reached out to Hunter Biden's attorney via email for comment on Friday.
New York attorney Colleen Kerwick told Newsweek that Biden should be wary of the "Streisand Effect" when it comes to the case.
The Streisand Effect, named after singer and actress Barbara Streisand, describes times when a person accidentally increases public interest while seeking privacy.
The term was coined after Streisand unsuccessfully sued a photographer in 2003 for an obscure photograph of her Malibu home. The resulting publicity led to a massive spike in the number of people viewing the photograph online.
"One would wonder about the Streisand Effect of Hunter Biden's action," Kerwick said of the lawsuit.
However, she said that the law under which Biden is suing Fox could allow him to begin criminal proceedings against the station and, therefore, squash some of the stories.
"His lawsuit was brought not only on unjust enrichment grounds but under NY Civil Rights Law 52-b. The plaintiff brings a private right of action which could potentially segue into a criminal action," she said.
"That concern may serve to dampen the more salacious news stories as news concerning the 2024 presidential election heats up."
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According to Biden's court filing, the Fox series caused him "severe emotional distress, humiliation, and mental anguish, as well as irreparable injury to his personal and professional reputation."
The 15-page lawsuit filed in Manhattan state court on Sunday accuses Fox News of creating the series about Hunter Biden "in an effort to harass, annoy, alarm, and humiliate him, and tarnish his reputation."
"Far from reporting on a newsworthy event, Fox sought to commercialize Mr. Biden's personality through a form of treatment distinct from the dissemination of news or information. Indeed, the entire miniseries is fictionalized and based on a nonexistent criminal case," his lawyers claim.
Update 07/05/24 18:30 p.m. ET: This article was updated to include a statement from Fox News.
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