Former Michigan linebacker sues CBS for defamation over sign-stealing coverage

As if one Michigan controversy wasn’t enough this weekend, here’s another.

According to the New York Post, a former University of Michigan linebacker, who was embroiled in the school’s sign-stealing scandal, is suing CBS Detroit for defamation. Joey Velazquez, per the Rupert Murdoch-owned outlet, claims the local CBS affiliate in the Motor City falsely portrayed him as a “rat,” meaning he lied to NCAA officials about his role—or lack thereof—in the infamy that tore through Michigan’s program under Jim Harbaugh’s watch.

But as the Post notes, the network never named him in the story.

What the station did report, per a September 2025 story, was that an unnamed student-athlete had secretly recorded a phone call with Connor Stalions, the staffer at the center of the scandal, without his consent. That same source, according to a CBS News Detroit source, lied to the NCAA when he claimed former linebackers coach Chris Partridge told players not to cooperate with investigators. Partridge was fired in November 2023, just weeks after the NCAA investigation began, though he wasn’t ultimately penalized once the investigation concluded.

CBS News Detroit reported it had been provided information from a private investigator establishing that the student-athlete who lied about Partridge, the one who recorded the Stalions call, and the outlet’s own campus source were all the same person.

The NCAA’s own 79-page report on the scandal, per the local CBS affiliate, noted that “some of the witness’ statements are not as credible as others,” without naming which witness.

Velazquez, who played two seasons at Michigan before transferring to Ohio State, filed the lawsuit Aug. 28 in Manhattan Supreme Court. He claims CBS’s September 2025 story led people to believe he was the one who falsely told investigators that Partridge instructed players to lie, even without CBS printing his name. The complaint notes that it was already widely known Velazquez was the player who recorded the Stalions call, which the lawsuit argues made him easy to identify once CBS tied that detail to the claims about lying to the NCAA.

Velazquez’s filing claims that in the aftermath of the report, he and his family received roughly 5,000 hateful messages, including death threats, and were stalked by Michigan fans. Velazquez also claims the fallout cost him interest from professional teams.

Velazquez faces a harder legal road than a case like Kai Spears’ recent defamation win against The New York Times, where a Tuscaloosa jury awarded Spears $9.25 million after the Times directly named him and misidentified him as the passenger in a car during a fatal shooting. CBS didn’t name Velazquez specifically, and courts generally require that a defamatory statement be clearly “of and concerning” the plaintiff, and proving that an unnamed description was specific enough for readers to identify him will be a central fight in this case.

In any event, that fight is now the Manhattan Supreme Court’s to sort out.