The lawsuit says the former NFL star defamed the three teens after a Mississippi grand jury declined to indict them in Wells’ death.<\/p>\n
Three of the teens who were with Nolan Wells<\/a> the day he disappeared during a Fourth of July boating trip have gone forth with defamation lawsuits <\/a>against entities and individuals who they felt wrongly put harmful attention on them.<\/p>\n The group’s fathers filed a lawsuit<\/a> on their behalf on Monday in the Southern District of Mississippi against NFL Hall of Famer Terrell Owens<\/a>, citing a September 26 tweet in which he called for the three teens to be arrested. Owens also shared a link to an Instagram video that theorized that the teens tampered with Wells’ phone and killed him, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n Previously, the group stated they would sue “The View” host Sunny Hostin, Reverend Al Sharpton and Attorney Ben Crump over comments they made while discussing Wells’ death. Owens has previously pledged a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in Wells’ death.<\/p>\n “Not only is he defaming them, he’s basically saying to the mob, get your pitchforks, get your torches,” Edward Paltzik, a defamation and media attorney representing the three friends, told the Associated Press<\/a> regarding Owens.<\/p>\n A Mississippi grand jury declined to indict the teens in relation to Wells’ death, though another grand jury could be established should new evidence be found. A cause of death for the 18-year-old was undetermined through two autopsies and the autopsy conducted by the Jackson County Medical Examiner revealed that no water was found in Wells’ stomach nor his airways, despite a grand jury suggesting the possibility that he could have drowned.<\/p>\n “Paradoxically, you won’t find water in the airways for some of these drownings for someone who’s been dead for a while necessarily,” Dr. Christopher Tape, the coroner for St. Tammany Parish in Louisiana, told WDSU<\/a> last month. “After a few days, the water is going to distribute everywhere, so it becomes difficult to conclude.”<\/p>\n