Fake Wikipedia posting leads Golfer Fuzzy to sue

An American professional golfer, Fuzzy Zoeller has launched a lawsuit to identify a poster who posted what he calls 'defamatory statements' about him on the Internet reference site Wikipedia.

An unsupported post in the Wikipedia said professional golfer Zoeller was addicted to alcohol and pain-killers. The added paragraph also accused Zoeller of abusing his family with no evidence to back up the statements. He was further accused as having viciously beaten his wife, Dianne and their four children while he was stoned.

Prevented by law from suing the online encyclopedia that allows anyone to edit information, the Master’s Cup winner is targeting Josef Silny & Associates, a Miami education consulting firm, as the suit alleges someone used a computer from that company to add the information to Zoeller's Wikipedia profile.

Though the paragraph in question has been deleted, but the information has already been picked up by other Web sites. The nasty comments about Zoeller were posted for the first time in August last year by someone using the name Damien Lynch but were later removed. Then again on December 20 defamatory statements were posted and this time these were linked to Silny's firm. The paragraph was removed on Jan. 2.

Zoeller's attorney, Scott D. Sheftall, said he filed the lawsuit against the Miami foreign-credential evaluation firm on February 13, 2007 in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, accusing the firm to post the allegedly defamatory remarks.

Zoeller, who is suing the firm under the name John Doe, alleged the statements were posted from a computer belonging to Josef Silny & Associates.

Sheftall said they sued the firm because the law won't permit to sue St. Petersburg-based Wikipedia as under US law you must go after the ultimate source of information.

''The Zoeller family wants to take a stand to put a stop to this. Otherwise, we're all just victims of the Internet vandals out there. They ought not to be able to act with impunity,'' said Sheftall.

Meanwhile, shocked with the news of lawsuit filed against his firm, Josef Silny, the company's president, said, "I think it's the most bizarre thing that's ever happened in my life," and further added that he doesn't follow golf and knows golfer's name only from the sports pages.

Still, Silny doubts that any of his 45 employees is responsible for the statements. "I can't imagine anybody doing that," Silny said. "This is completely out of left field." Yet, Silny has asked his computer consultant to look into the matter.

The largest reference Web site on the Internet, Wikipedia describes itself as ''the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.'' Anyone, who has registered with the site, can add onto existing postings or create new ones on Wikipedia. Though, the site warns in a disclaimer that it "cannot guarantee the validity of information found here."

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales declined to comment on the suit, and said no one has contacted the site about the lawsuit.