Covington Catholic Graduate Nick Sandmann Reaches Settlement With NBC

Photo Courtesy of the Committee on Arrangements for the 2020 Republican National Committee via Getty Images

Nicholas Sandmann announced on Friday that he has reached a settlement with NBC, amid a series of defamation suits brought against publications that misrepresented his interaction with a Native American man at a March for Life event in 2019.

Friday’s announcement marks the third settlement Sandmann has achieved, following CNN and Washington Post. Sandmann’s legal team had sued the Post for $250 million and CNN for $275 million, though the actual settlement amounts were not disclosed.

Sandmann, who had sought $275 million from NBC, wrote that the terms of the settlement with NBC are also confidential.

Court documents filed Friday in Kentucky show that both parties agreed to dismiss the case without a court judgement.

The basis for the suits centers on how the then-16-year-old Covington Catholic student was portrayed by the media over his interaction with Native American counter-protester Nathan Phillips. After the clip went viral, Sandmann told the Associated Press that he had not spoken or interacted with Phillips; Phillips later said that he and his groups were the ones to first approach the Covington students as well.

The suit claimed Sandmann was an “easy target for NBCUniversal to advance its anti-Trump agenda because he was a 16-year-old white, Catholic student who had attended the Right to Life March that day and was wearing a MAGA cap at the time of the incident which he had purchased earlier in the day as a souvenir.”

It added that the network “unleashed its vast corporate wealth, influence, and power against Nicholas to falsely attack him despite the fact that at the time, he was a 16-year-old high school student.”

Sandmann’s team also filed suits against the New York Times, CBS, ABC, Rolling Stone, and Gannett.