• by Sara Guaglione , April 12, 2017

Rolling Stone, its parent company Wenner Media and writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely have agreed to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by University of Virginia administrator Nicole Eramo over a debunked article about an alleged rape at a fraternity on campus, the magazine announced Tuesday.

Eramo claimed in the suit the discredited November 2014 article, “A Rape On Campus,” defamed her and portrayed her as the “chief villain” trying to discourage the woman identified as Jackie from reporting her alleged assault to police.

Lawyers for Eramo filed a notice in Federal District Court in Virginia yesterday that she was dropping the suit.

“We are delighted tthis dispute is now behind us, as it allows Nicole to move on and focus on doing what she does best, which is supporting victims of sexual assault,” Libby Locke, one of her lawyers, said in a statement obtained by The New York Times.

A spokeswoman for Wenner Media told the NYT, “Rolling Stone, Sabrina Rubin Erdely and Nicole Eramo have come to an amicable resolution. The terms are confidential.”

Last November, a federal jury ordered Rolling Stone and Erdely to pay Eramo $3 million in damages, after it found the magazine liable of actual malice in its portrayal of Eramo.

Eramo was originally seeking $7.5 million. The magazine and Erdely have since appealed the ruling.

"A Rape on Campus" sparked a national outcry regarding campus sexual assault, portraying Jackie as the victim of an alleged gang rape at a Phi Kappa Psi fraternity party.

The story was retracted in April 2015 after investigations by The Washington Post, Columbia Journalism Review and the Charlottesville police contradicted the magazine’s account.

Before printing the story, Rolling Stone did not seek out Jackie's alleged attackers to corroborate her story.

Rolling Stone still faces a $25 million lawsuit from the Phi Kappa Psi chapter of the University of Virginia, claiming the story made the fraternity and its members "the object of an avalanche of condemnation worldwide.”

The 10-day jury trial is scheduled to begin in October.