Fox News Network responded Tuesday in court records to a $10 million lawsuit pending in Lubbock federal court.
In October of 2016, William Rembis sued Fox News for an Associated Press story on the Fox website.
An article naming Rembis appeared in a category of foxnews.com labeled “sex crimes.” The article itself never accused Rembis or his wife of sex crimes. Rembis claimed that putting the article into the sex crimes category was derogatory and baseless.
“My wife and I have never been charged, let alone accused of sexual crimes of any kind,” Rembis wrote in an email to Fox News.
The story was in reference to an ongoing child custody dispute between the Rembis family and Children’s Protective Services. A state district court in Lubbock ruled that CPS could temporarily take custody of 10 children. An 11th child in the family was old enough to refuse CPS.
More recently, CPS submitted a plan to reunite the children with Rembis and his wife, which the court accepted.
Meanwhile, the federal lawsuit was delayed when Rembis filed for bankruptcy. Now that the case is back on track, Fox News filed a request with the federal judge in Lubbock to have the lawsuit thrown out.
Fox News said in court, “The AP Article expressly states that [Rembis] has not been charged with a crime of any kind.”
Fox News also said the presence of the words “sex,” “crime,” or “sex crime” on a web page do not necessarily point to Rembis.
But Fox took it a step further in its written response, saying, “As [Rembis] admits, [he] was investigated by Michigan State Police after Michigan Child Protective Services (“CPS”) accused him of sexual abuse in 2009.”
The request by Fox concluded that Rembis’ lawsuit should be dismissed with prejudice.