Former tennis star James Blake saw defamation claims brought against him by the New York City police officer caught on video tackling him outside of a midtown Manhattan hotel largely dismissed by a federal judge late Tuesday.

Blake, along with the city and the police department, as well as the police oversight Civilian Complaint Review Board, faced civil claims over the release of information and public statements about Officer James Frascatore, whose September 2015 takedown of Blake in a case of mistaken identity resulted in, as Judge Gregory Woods of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York noted, Frascatore being “lambasted” in the press.

Yet Frascatore's complaint, which stretched from incidents both substantially before and after the incident, failed to prove defamation by Blake or his federal “stigma-plus” claims of reputational harm and racism by the CCRB or the NYPD.

As Woods noted, defamation suits are generally brought on state, not federal, grounds. A carveout is made for defamation made by a government official, who can be shown to have made a stigmatizing statement plus a loss of some tangible interest. These claims also have a time-based requirement—without a close temporal relationship between the alleged statements and the alleged injury, the claims fail.

Woods found this was just the case with the CCRB and NYPD claims. CCRB and a former executive director intentionally leaked details of Frascatore's personnel file to the media in 2014 that showed a history of complaints against him. These files were cited often in later news stories after the Blake incident, which Frascatore says shows the intent to harm him. The unidentified NYPD sources quoted in news media being critical of Frascatore's actions during the incident occurred in 2015. Yet the supposed negative effect—the ultimate resolution of Frascatore's disciplinary hearings—didn't occur until at least two years later, in 2017.

Similarly, Frascatore's claims against the CCRB defendants never once pointed to any statements made in connection with or contained within his records. The sources from the police department quoted in news media likewise failed to show any derogatory intent, adding up to little more than an “oblique criticism” of his handling of the Blake situation.

On the specific Blake claims, Woods went into detail on each of the nine specific statements that Frascatore pulled from Blake's public appearances and from a book he published in 2017 after the incident. In each, Woods found deficiencies that were fatal to the police officer's allegations of defamation.

Frascatore failed to allege Blake made any of the statements in a grossly irresponsible manner, Woods found. In all but two of them, the officer failed to allege the statement was false. Blake, the judge found, was generally recounting his own subjective recollection, such as his different version of the events around his arrest, or expressing his subjective opinion, such as stating in his book that the officer did not “afford [Blake] the dignity and respect due every person who walks the streets of this country.”

As such, Woods granted the motions to dismiss filed by Blake and the various city defendants. However, the judge granted leave to replead all his claims, with the exception of all but the two Blake defamation claims that centered on Blake's statements about the event itself.

Blake's attorney, Marino, Tortorella & Boyle name attorney Kevin Marino, said, “We are pleased and gratified that the Court dismissed Mr. Frascatore's frivolous, blame-the-victim lawsuit in its entirety.”

Frascatore was represented by private attorney Peter Brill. He noted Woods' deadline of re-filing a complaint, which he said he intended to “in order to vindicate Officer Frascatore's reputation.”

A spokesman for the city's Law Department declined to comment. A spokesman for the NYPD did not return multiple requests for comment.