The verdict against #RyanUpchurch is a warning shot for true-crime creators.@paramounttactical

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]Just remember that a jury's going to potentially have a chance to decide if you conveyed a false statement of fact that's worthy of getting smacked with a verdict on. And in this case, Gary, they spoke so loudly on this. The jury said 17 and a half million dollars in compensatory damages. What that means is to make you whole, we are going to pay you this much money. This is how much we think you were you deserve to be compensated. That's not to punish Ryan Upchurch. Then, the jury came back and the jury said, "Guess what, dude? We don't like you." And that's when they delivered $500,000 in punitive damages.

[00:00:37]This is not a normal jury verdict.

[00:00:40]>> Kylie Rodney disappeared on August 6th, 2022. Some of the big things here, Ryan Church Upchurch began posting about Kylie Rodney on YouTube on August 13th, 2022. At this time, the whereabouts of Kylie Rodney were unknown. In these videos, Upchurch offered outlandish theories of the truth of what happened to Kylie Rodney. Upchurch initially theorized that a person named Ronnie was a red herring and a made-up character.

[00:01:01]In the comment replied to his video, Red Flag Ronnie 2, YouTuber user posted, "Dude, be careful. You're going to get sued for slander, for real." Upchurch replied, "They can slander these nuts."

[00:01:11]I'm sure that went over well [laughter] with these viewers. In a video posted on August 20th, Upchurch falsely claimed that the various other YouTube crime would be sleuths were responsible for or somehow involved in the death of Kylie Rodney.

[00:01:26]This case is a warning shot for true crime content creators and anyone that's covering news, period. If you are in the true crime or recap game, you are allowed to ask questions. You are allowed to criticize an investigation.

[00:01:41]You're allowed to criticize the federal government, the state government, the police. You can even speculate to a degree, okay? But when you tell millions of people that a dead teenager and her grieving family are fake, or that the family is running a GoFundMe scam, and this is a family who just lost a daughter who drowned, which drowning is one of the worst ways to go. Yeah. When you say things that are a false statement of a fact, you've crossed into accusations. You now have liability.

[00:02:13]I'll be the first one to support a content creator. Like I said, I I represent many who have opinions, strong ones. Opinions that you may not agree with, I may not agree with, but I support the right to have an opinion.