Could Mark Robinson face legal liability for lying about porn reports?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Lawyers say pursuing a knowingly frivolous suit can trigger civil liability.
- Robinson sued CNN and a former porn-shop clerk who first came forward.
- He dropped the lawsuit after revising claims and after the 2024 election.
Could former Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson face legal liability for filing a lawsuit against CNN and a former Greensboro porn shop clerk if he knew information they provided was accurate?
Two First Amendment lawyers said yes, in interviews with McClatchy on Friday afternoon, a day after Robinson acknowledged lying about his 2024 scandal.
“If you bring a frivolous claim and continue to pursue the claim knowing it’s frivolous, you can be held civilly liable for either abuse of process, malicious prosecution or both,” said Mike Tadych, who represents The News & Observer. “If he knew that what they said was true, and did it either to save his campaign or whatever else, then he abused the process.”
The News & Observer was not able to reach Robinson this week by phone or text message, before or after Thursday’s admissions.
In 2024, Robinson ran against then-Attorney General Josh Stein to be North Carolina’s next governor. But just months before the election, CNN uncovered a series of raunchy and racist posts made on a porn forum called “Nude Africa,” by an account that the news network traced back to Robinson.
The posts included calling himself a “Black Nazi,” endorsing slavery, using slurs against minority communities and admitting to watching women shower and enjoying gay porn.
At the time, Robinson vehemently denied the report, saying, “Those are not the words of Mark Robinson.” Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from Huntersville, told Robinson to hire a lawyer and prove CNN wrong. He said if Robinson couldn’t do that in a reasonable amount of time, then “some, maybe not all, but some of these allegations are true, and if they are, they’re devastating and disqualifying.”
Robinson didn’t heed Tillis’ timeline, but did sue CNN and a man named Louis Love Money, a former clerk of a porn shop in Greensboro who first came forward about Robinson’s porn habits to The Assembly. The initial lawsuit against CNN was for $50 million. He later revised it, and after the election dropped the lawsuit altogether.
On Thursday, Robinson admitted that he has a sex and pornography addiction and has been a “carnal person” from a young age. The admission came during an online web show launched by Robinson’s former campaign adviser, Matt Hurley, who took over the campaign duties following CNN’s report after most of Robinson’s staff quit.
Robinson further admitted that CNN’s report was accurate, though he also said some of the comments in the article were falsely attributed to him. “I won’t say I completely lied,” he said.
“If he knew what was said was true and did it either to save his campaign or whatever else, then he abused the process and then to continue with it — he did that amendment ... continuing with it is malicious prosecution,” Tadych said.
Israel Balderas, an assistant professor at Elon University’s School of Journalism, said had Robinson not dismissed the lawsuit himself, the case would be “a slam dunk” for CNN.
As a public figure, Robinson “would have to prove that CNN’s reporting was false and that they acted with actual malice,” Balderas said. “That’s sort of the legal term. But what actual malice means, it’s that CNN knew the reporting was false or recklessly disregarded the truth, so if Robinson is now conceding that there was truth behind the reporting, well then certainly, that would cut against the core of his own defamation claim.”
Both Tadych and Balderas said it will now be up to CNN or Money to choose whether to pursue recourse.
Tadych said both CNN and Money would be able to make claims for malicious prosecution and there’s a possibility that the court could award attorneys’ fees back to the news network and the former store clerk.
Tadych has personally defended a client in this type of litigation.
Balderas said CNN could take it a step further and sue for defamation, though the bar would be set high for an entity like CNN to prove that.
As for lying in his campaign, Balderas said Robinson will likely face public scrutiny for spending more than $100,000 in campaign funds on litigation against CNN.
Tadych added that someone has a First Amendment right to lie, but does not have the right to lie on federal election forms, and he doesn’t know where Robinson’s fabrication stopped.
This story was originally published March 20, 2026 at 6:30 PM.
