ST. PAUL — A judge has rejected a request from the widow of “American Sniper” author Chris Kyle to order a new trial or set aside a jury’s verdict in favor of former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura.

Ventura was awarded $1.8 million a defamation claim against Kyle. Ventura said Kyle made up a claim of decking Ventura at a California bar in 2006 after the former governor supposedly made offensive comments about Navy SEALs.

Attorneys for Taya Kyle argued that the laws and evidence at trial didn’t support the jury’s award.

But U.S. District Judge Richard Kyle, who also presided over that trial, wrote in a decision filed Wednesday that the trial was fair and the verdicts supported by “substantial evidence.”

Kyle’s considered the deadliest sniper in U.S. military history. He was killed in Texas last year.