Earlier this year, James Woods successfully secured the ability to sue an anonymous Twitter user for $10 million and try to uncover his or her identity after the user accused the conservative actor of being a “cocaine addict.”
On Thursday, Woods publicly celebrated that the Twitter user had dropped an appeal to keep the name anonymous.
The only issue is, the defendant had actually died, as one of the defendant’s lawyers, Lisa Bloom, announced on Twitter.
Whether or not Woods knew the information before he tweeted it, we can’t say for sure. But we can say that he was undeterred once he found out, writing that he hoped the Twitter user died “in agony” and “screaming [his] name,” according to screenshots secured by TechDirt (those tweets have since been deleted).
In another tweet, Woods said, “Learn this. Libel me, I’ll sue you. If you die, I’ll follow you to the bowels of Hell. Get it?”
The Hollywood Reporter reported early Friday that Woods hopes to continue with the defamation case and discover the Twitter user’s real name. Ken White, the defendant’s other lawyer, said this of the defendant in a statement on his website:
He was extraordinarily literate and inventive and nobody’s pushover opponent in an argument. Beneath Abe’s [a pseudonym] acerbic wit was a passion about issues and people, a dogged sense of right and wrong, and a contempt for bullies. We agreed about very little, but I grew to look forward to our exchanges and became quite fond of him. Combined with the fact that he was in the right and the case against him was contemptible thuggery, that made representing him a pleasure.
Woods, for his part, had this to say of the defendant’s lawyer:
A request for comment from James Woods’ publicist was not returned.
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