League legend's daughter wins big payout over NRL sex tape saga

A Facebook page creator has been ordered to pay the daughter of NRL great Mark Geyer $125,000 damages for false claims made about a leaked sex tape.

Montanna Geyer sued Fouad Ghosn in the NSW District Court over a March 2019 post identifying her as "the bird" in an intimate video illegally filmed by Penrith Panthers back Tyrone May.

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"The contents of this post were completely false from beginning to end," Judge Judith Gibson said on Wednesday.

"However, that did not stop the post from going 'viral', just like the video and the Tyrone May scandal. The defendant's post was liked and shared by multiple sites."

While the offending image and text was taken down within days, Mr Ghosn used each request to apologise and retract the false claim to make "further defamatory and insulting remarks in the most public way that he could", namely the page followed by 300,000 Facebook accounts

"This was high-handed conduct and lacking in bona fides," Judge Gibson said.

"He well knew that the plaintiff had no connection with the video and, instead of acknowledging his error, he took refuge in insult and invective.

"It would be hard to find a clearer case of aggravating conduct."

Ms Geyer told the court she first saw the post after a stranger contacted her on Facebook Messenger to ask if she was the woman in the video.

"As soon as I saw it, I screamed," she said.

"I literally screamed, from just pure shock, and I ran downstairs to my family, because I didn't know what was going on, and I was - I was devastated."

Damages awarded after lack of an apology

Mr Geyer and his son Logan also gave evidence about her distress and their attempts to identify the post's publisher.

Mr Ghosn's lawyer played down the level of the defamation and said it was "difficult to understand" why Ms Geyer was so upset, given her friends knew the post was not her and she was portrayed as a victim of an illegally recorded video.

He also explained that Mr Ghosn hadn't apologised as he denied being the publisher of the now-defunct page.

That was despite legal documents related to the case being posted to the NRL Memes page - under the banner "FAKE NEWS" - within two hours of them being personally served on Mr Ghosn in May 2019.

Judge Gibson rejected those claims.

Saying there was little doubt the NRL Memes page had "a long and undistinguished history of publishing scandalous and false material", she ruled aggravated damages should be awarded for lack of apology and increased harm of the false posts.

"The evidence of (Ms Geyer) and her family paints a compelling picture of a young woman overwhelmed by a viral falsehood that had a profound impact on her personally for a considerable time," Judge Gibson said.

"That hurt was more than usually exacerbated by the offensive further online postings by the defendant in response to the plaintiff's solicitors' correspondence with him, and by the falsity of the imputations."

Costs and interest will be decided at a later date.

A magistrate in January convicted Tyrone May and ordered he do 300 hours of community service over the intimate recording and three similar tapes.

Each was shot without the consent of the women involved.

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