Three university graduates profiled in a debunked account of a gang rape in a retracted Rolling Stone magazine story have filed a lawsuit against the publication and the article's author.
The three University of Virginia graduates, George Elias IV, Stephen Hadford and Ross Fowler, filed suit in US District Court in New York on Wednesday, court records show.
They are also suing Rolling Stone’s publisher, Wenner Media.
A lawyer for the men, who were members of a fraternity, said they suffered “vicious and hurtful attacks” because of inaccuracies in the November 2014 article, which was written by journalist Sabrina Rubin Erdely.
Also on Wednesday, The New York Times reported that Will Dana, Rolling Stone’s managing editor, will be leaving the magazine next month.
Mr Dana said in a statement to The Times that after 19 years at Rolling Stone, "I have decided that it is time to move on."
When asked whether Mr Dana’s departure was linked to the retracted story, a spokeswoman for the magazine’s publisher, Jann Wenner, said that “many factors go into a decision like this”, according to the report.
In the lawsuit, the three 2013 graduates said the article “created a simple and direct way to match the alleged attackers” from the alleged gang rape to them based on details provided in the story.
For instance, Mr Elias’s room at the fraternity house was “the mostly likely scene of the alleged crime” based on the details in the Rolling Stone article.
“Upon release of the article, family friends, acquaintances, co-workers and reporters easily matched (Elias) as one of the alleged attackers and, among other things, interrogated him, humiliated him, and scolded him,” the lawsuit said, adding that Mr Hadford and Mr Fowler “suffered similar attacks”.
In the lawsuit, their lawyer said each of their identities was listed online by anonymous users when the article first came out and each of their “names will forever be associated with the alleged gang rape”.
“These claims had a devastating effect on each of the plaintiffs’ reputations,” their lawyer, Alan L Frank, wrote in the filing.
The men are suing on three counts, including defamation and negligent infliction of emotional distress, and are asking for at least 75,000 US dollars (€68,600) for each count.
The Charlottesville Police Department has said it found no evidence to back the claims of the woman identified in the story only as “Jackie”, who said she was raped in 2012 by seven men at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house.
A University of Virginia associate dean sued Rolling Stone magazine for more than 7.5 million US dollars (€6.9 million) in May, saying a debunked and retracted account of an alleged gang rape on campus cast her as the “chief villain”.
A report published by the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism earlier this year said Rolling Stone failed at virtually every step of the process, from the reporting by Ms Erdely to an editing process that included high-ranking staffers.
No-one at Rolling Stone was fired as a result of the article, titled “A Rape on Campus”.
Mr Dana posted an apology on the publication’s website, and Ms Erdely also apologised in a statement.
The article roiled the University of Virginia community, sparking protests at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house and a wrenching period of soul-searching by the university.
For the three former students, the article made them unable to focus on school and work, and embarrassed them about their association with the fraternity.
Despite its flaws, the Rolling Stone article heightened scrutiny of campus sexual assaults amid a campaign by president Barack Obama.
The University of Virginia had already been on the Department of Education’s list of 55 colleges under investigation for their handling of sexual assault violations.
The article also prompted president Teresa Sullivan to temporarily suspend Greek social events.
Fraternities later agreed to ban kegs, hire security workers and keep at least three fraternity members sober at each event.