The defamation case between former Kotaku Senior Editor Alyssa Mercante and gaming YouTuber Jeff Tarzia, known online as SmashJT, has been moving through federal court since December 2024. The actual docket looks nothing like what the commentary sphere has been reporting.
Sites like That Park Place and Geeks+Gamers, along with Tarzia himself, framed this lawsuit as a slow-motion humiliation for Mercante: a frivolous SLAPP suit crumbling under Ron Coleman’s motions. One May 2025 piece declared the case “increasingly looks like what it is.” A July 2025 That Park Place article titled Tarzia’s latest filing the “final filing” and treated dismissal as a foregone conclusion. Tarzia has updated his audience across multiple videos and Substack posts with a consistent narrative: Mercante is losing, the case is nearly dead, Coleman is winning at every turn.
The federal docket for Mercante v. Tarzia, case 1:24-cv-08471 in the Eastern District of New York, does not support that narrative.
