Jeff Greene will sue the Times and the Herald for libel (Updated)

The New York Times is today reporting that Jeff Greene, the billionaire latecomer who challenged and lost to Rep. Kendrick Meek in this year’s Democratic Senate primary, will follow through on his promise to sue the St. Petersburg Times for libel (via Saint Petersblog 2.0). He is also targeting the Miami Herald, which jointly published the stories Greene says damaged his Senate bid.

From the N.Y. Times:

Dogged by rumors about wild parties aboard his 145-foot yacht and about fraudulent real estate deals, Mr. Greene will seek at least $500 million in damages in part, he said, to teach the news media a lesson. “I want to send a message to every newspaper in the country: Do your homework,” he said Tuesday in a telephone interview. “I deserve to have the record corrected, and they deserve to be punished.”

He has hired L. Lin Wood, a prominent libel lawyer who has won settlements for other public figures who claimed they were defamed by the news media, including Richard A. Jewell, the security guard cleared as a suspect in the 1996 Olympics bombing in Atlanta. Mr. Wood said he expected to file a formal complaint in state court in Miami-Dade County on Wednesday.

The Saint Pete Times isn’t backing away from its story, repeating to the N.Y. Times part of the defense of its reporting Times Editor and Vice President Neil Brown offered The Florida Independent in a statement last month:

The Times‘ coverage of Mr. Greene and his business transactions has been thorough and fair, and the reporting is well-documented in public records. Our story is accurate, balanced and we stand by it.

Update

As our Travis Pillow points out, to prevail in court, Greene will have to prove the papers ran the stories with “actual malice,” or reckless disregard for the truth.