Pepperdine Files Libel Suit Against 'Mr. Malibu'

Pepperdine University has filed a lawsuit alleging libel against viedographer "Mr. Malibu," over his claims that the school is responsible for tainted storm water that spills over into Marie Canyon Creek and Malibu Beach.

The university filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court on April 11, according to the Malibu Surfside News.

"We filed the lawsuit after making several serious attempts to resolve it," Jerry Derloshon, the school's senior director of public affairs, told the newspaper.

The lawsuit is over two videos uploaded by Cary ONeal, who blogs as "Mr. Malibu," to his Facebook page and YouTube channel. The videos have since been taken down while the lawsuit is pending.

ONeal posted the first video, "Pepperdine Recklessly Dumps Sewage on Malibu Beach," on March 25 on his Facebook fan page, which disappeared a short time later.

In the video, ONeal shows footage of water runoff during a storm and shots of the Malibu Mesa Water Reclamation Facility, which is used to treat sewage from Pepperdine University. The video also shows frothy water coming out of the Marie Canyon Creek storm drain, stating "dumping recalls third world open ditch sewers."

Pepperdine shot back with a cease-and-desist order putting forth that the Malibu Mesa treatment plant is controlled by the Los Angeles County Public Works Department.

ONeal, 56, posted another, four-minute video, "Malibu, California, USA – Luxury Beach Homes of Adam Sandler, Tom Hanks, David Duchovny and Pink Under Siege," which blamed Pepperdine for the Facebook ban.

In court papers, Pepperdine has called the claims from both of his videos, "patently false and defamatory."

School officials informed ONeal that there was no record at LA Public Works of dumping sewage or reclaimed water on March 25, according to the lawsuit. Pepperdine claims the runoff shown in the video is from the large of amount of rain that day.

"More importantly, Pepperdine itself does not discharge disinfected tertiary treated reclaimed water into Marie Canyon or onto any Malibu beaches," the lawsuit states.