Stephen Baldwin Loses Lawsuit Against Kevin Costner

Stephen Baldwin and his friend, Spyridon Contogouris, were hoping to get about $17 million from their lawsuit against Kevin Costner and his company Ocean Therapy Solutions. But a judge ruled against Baldwin, saying that Costner did not do anything deliberate to cheat the actor out of money.

After the verdict, Costner said:

“My name means more to me than money and that’s why we didn’t settle.”

Baldwin filed a lawsuit against Costner saying that he was deliberately deceived about a multi-million dollar deal with BP. Baldwin and Contogouris sold their shares in Ocean Therapy Solutions days before Costner and the oil company signed a deal to put several of Ocean Therapy’s centrifuge cleaning machines at the BP oil spill.

Baldwin said that he would have held onto his shares if he knew a deal was going through.

His attorney, James Cobb, said:

“We’re disappointed. We thought we proved rather convincingly that these two guys, Mr. Costner and Mr. Smith, defrauded us… The jury saw it a different way but we respect the jury’s verdict.”

Costner and his business partner business Patrick Smith argued that Baldwin and Contogouris knew about the possibility of a deal with BP but decided not to gamble anymore of their money. Cobb insisted that the jury was persuaded by Costner’s celebrity and not be the facts of the case.

Costner, of course, disagreed:

“They were really smart, and it was my good luck that they saw the truth of the story.”

Costner’s attorney argued the lawsuit should have never been brought up in the first place. Attorney Wayne Lee said:

“This lawsuit never should have been brought… Mr. Costner never should have been a party to these proceedings.”