Hans Reiser mug shot
(Credit: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)
Hans Reiser, a noted Linux programmer convicted in 2008 of murdering his estranged wife, was ordered in a civil lawsuit today to pay his two children a total of $60 million for killing their mother.
Attorneys for Rory and Niorline Reiser, now 12 and 11, respectively, had asked jurors in the wrongful death case to order Hans Reiser to pay $10 million in compensatory damages to each child and an additional $5 million in punitive damages.
However, following the week-long trial, in which Reiser reportedly represented himself in the same rambling and oddball fashion he defended himself in his murder trial, the jury instead ordered him to pay $25 million to each child, plus $10 million in punitive damages, according to court records. The children live with the mother of their late mother, Nina Reiser, in her native Russia and didn't attend the trial.
Reiser, once known in tech circles as the founder of the ReiserFS file system software, had reported argued this week that he killed Nina to keep her from harming their two children. He argued that his wife had a disorder in which parents make up illnesses for their children to gain sympathy from others. He even compared himself "to Moses... [Read more]
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