A Casper man who ran for one of Wyoming’s two U.S. Senate seats in 2024 and made headlines with an aspiration to buy TikTok has given plausible enough evidence that a former state legislator damaged his reputation to keep his defamation lawsuit alive, for now.
Reid Rasner’s defamation lawsuit against former state Sen. Anthony Bouchard will survive at least into the evidence-swapping phase, a judge has ruled.
Rasner on July 8 sued Bouchard, a Republican of the Cheyenne area.
The lawsuit complaint asserts that Bouchard made Facebook comments accusing Rasner of having a “student sexual abuse record” at Casper College, among other statements.
Those posts defamed Rasner in ways that caused both pointed and automatic harm, the lawsuit says.
Rasner also accuses Bouchard of interfering with Rasner’s business endeavors and inflicting negligent and intentional emotional distress on him.
The Claims
District Court Judge Benjamin Kirven is allowing all four claims to proceed to the discovery, or evidence-swapping phase of the case, says an order he filed Nov. 25 in Laramie District Court.
The order denies Bouchard’s Aug. 13 motion to dismiss.
But it delays judgment on another request and argument Bouchard couched within his motion, asking Kirven to judge the case early in his favor.
That kind of request is for a later stage, Kirven noted.
Kirven said in his order that the standard under which he has to review Rasner’s complaint, against Bouchard’s request for dismissal, is necessarily friendly to Rasner.
Wyoming case law orders judges at this early stage to “accept the facts stated in the complaint as true and view them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff,” Kirven wrote.
If Bouchard accused Rasner of having a “student sexual abuse record” as Rasner alleges, then Rasner’s claim of automatic damages from defamation is at least plausible, the judge continued.
Non-parties in this case submitted cross-filings within it.
Bouchard’s friend, Austin Jennings, submitted an affidavit saying he’d heard Rasner had committed a sex abuse act against a teenage boy; and that in turn, he told Bouchard about that.
Jennings also told the court that “a complaint had been filed with the college” about the alleged 2010 incident.
Brandon Kosine, Casper College president, countered in an Oct. 31 affidavit.
He said the human resources department conducted “an exhaustive search for (subpoenaed) records at Casper College” pertaining to the case.
“Casper College has no records at all concerning any reports of sexual misconduct by Mr. Rasner,” wrote Kosine.
Kosine continued, saying he knew of Jennings’ affidavit, but the college didn’t find “any such complaint,” and “There is and was a zero-tolerance policy for sexual misconduct at Casper College.”
Date Stamp
In Wyoming, people seeking to sue for defamation must do so within a year of being defamed.
Rasner filed his lawsuit more than a year after the date stamp of Bouchard’s reported comment, but he didn’t learn about the comment until later, less than a year before he filed his lawsuit.
Bouchard argued to the court that Rasner was too late to sue.
Rasner argued he wasn’t.
Kirven agreed with Rasner, writing that “the timing analysis under Wyoming’s statute of limitations does not begin until Plaintiff discovers that a cause of action is available … which means the complaint was filed within the one-year time frame.”
Scuttling Business Prospects
Rasner in the earliest version of his complaint said Bouchard caused him “to lose potential business contracts,” and told Cowboy State Daily that was a reference to his widely publicized bid to buy social media company TikTok.
The second, or “amended,” version of Rasner’s complaint added a reference to Rasner’s wealth management company, rather than TikTok, while keeping the general reference to “potential business contracts.”
Kirven’s order keeping the case alive likewise references Rasner’s wealth management company, not TikTok, in keeping Rasner’s tortious interference with a business expectancy claim alive.
Emotional Distress
Lastly, Kirven maintained Rasner’s claims that Bouchard inflicted emotional distress on him.
“(Bouchard) has allegedly repeated a false claim that Plaintiff had a ‘student sexual abuse record’ while in a position of authority at Casper College,” wrote Kirven. “These statements can be considered extreme and outrageous, especially assuming their falsity as Plaintiff asserts, and could serve to establish that Defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.”
Kirven wrote that his filing of the order started the evidence-swapping process.
‘Major Legal Victory’
Bouchard did not immediately respond to a Tuesday text message request for comment.
Rasner, upon request, sent a statement calling Kirven’s order a “major legal victory," a decisive step toward clearing his name, “and exposing the full network of individuals who circulated false allegations during his United States Senate campaign.”
“Rasner has consistently maintained that he was the target of a coordinated smear campaign designed to destroy his reputation and influence an election,” the statement says. “With this order, the process of restoring his good name begins, and the exposure of every participant is now underway.”
The theme of finding more potentially liable parties repeats itself in Rasner’s quotes within the statement.
“Every single person who pushed this lie will be held fully accountable,” says Rasner in the statement. “We are watching them closely. Some are still spreading the same nonsense event today, and they will face the exact same legal consequences.”
Rasner added: “I built my reputation through hard work, results, and integrity, and I will not allow anyone to steal that from me. I will do whatever it takes to restore my good name, and I will come back stronger than ever.”
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
