Cops, nail polish and poster in Beaufort end in $300k payday for a pair claiming defamation
Marking the conclusion of a 2023 defamation lawsuit, a now-defunct Beaufort nail salon was ordered to pay $300,000 to two former customers after a payment mixup landed them on an “attempt to identify” police poster that was shared over a dozen times online.
The owners of Handy Nail Salon, formerly located on Boundary Street, would be responsible for the payment after Circuit Court Judge Benjamin H. Culbertson ruled in favor of Beaufort County residents Bradford and Karristen Gonzalez in a Feb. 18 hearing.
The court summons claimed the Gonzalez family visited the nail salon on July 25, 2023, paying for their services with a debit card. They left the store, unaware that the payment hadn’t been accepted.
Employees then “negligently and recklessly” called Beaufort police, reporting that the couple had stolen from the business. They sent investigators the store’s surveillance footage from that day, according to court documents.
About two weeks later, the Beaufort Police Department, which was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, posted a screen capture of the couple with the heading “attempt to identify” in large yellow font. The Facebook post also included phone numbers to contact an investigator about the alleged crime.
Beaufort police edited the Facebook post to remove the Gonzalezes’ photo on Aug. 11, the day after the poster was originally shared. By then, the post already had more than 15 shares.
“Updated: They have been identified,” the edited Facebook post read.
Filed Oct. 30, 2023, the lawsuit alleges the salon “negligently handled” the transaction by failing to ensure they received the payment, and then “spread the defamation” to police “without reason or a good faith belief.”
At the time of the filing, Chief Stephenie Price of the Beaufort Police Department said the “attempt to identify” posts are used “after an officer has thoroughly exhausted all avenues to identify a person of interest.” The practice has proved successful in identifying and catching criminals, she added.
A representative for Handy Nail Salon did not respond to a request for comment.
Stephen F. DeAntonio, a Charleston-based lawyer who represented the Gonzalez family, did not respond to additional questions.
