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The
2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan rejected the
lawsuit in which Santos alleged that Kimmel deceived him into
making videos on the Cameo app that were used to ridicule the
disgraced New York Republican on air.
The appeals court said Kimmel was protected by fair use laws
allowing limited use of copyrighted material without permission
for humor and parody, among other possibilities.
Lawyers in the case did not immediately respond to requests for
comment.
The 2nd Circuit said Kimmel used fictitious names to submit
requests to Santos for personalized videos that the comedian
then aired on his show as part of a mocking series of segments
titled “ Will Santos Say It? ”
In one clip, Santos offers congratulations to the purported
winner of a beef-eating contest, calling the feat of consuming 6
pounds (2.7 kilograms) of loose ground beef in under 30 minutes
“amazing and impressive.”
In his February 2024 lawsuit, Santos said Kimmel was
“capitalizing on and ridiculing” his “gregarious personality.”
The appeals court, in an opinion written by Circuit Judge
Raymond J. Lohier, Jr., said even the lawsuit filed by Santos
portrays the defendants as being motivated by sarcastic
criticism and commentary, two purposes protected by the fair use
doctrine.
In July, Santos reported to a federal prison in New Jersey to
begin serving a seven-year sentence after pleading guilty to
federal wire fraud and aggravated identity theft charges for
deceiving donors and stealing people’s identities in order to
fund his congressional campaign.
Santos was once heralded in the Republican Party for winning a
perennially contested New York congressional seat covering parts
of Queens and Long Island. But then it became clear that he
fabricated much of his life story.
Among false claims were that his mother died in the 9/11
attacks. He also had to explain that he was “Jew-ish,” not
Jewish, when questions were raised about his claim that his
grandparents had fled the Holocaust.
He survived two expulsion attempts before a scathing House
ethics committee report in late 2023 led to his ouster from
Congress, making him only the sixth member in the chamber’s
history to be removed by colleagues.
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