Judge awards $4.1M in neo-Nazi website lawsuit
Associated Press
COLUMBUS
A federal judge awarded a Muslim-American radio host $4.1 million in monetary damages Wednesday after he successfully sued a neo-Nazi website operator who falsely accused him of terrorism.
SiriusXM Radio show host Dean Obeidallah filed the civil complaint against The Daily Stormer founder Andrew Anglin, who hasn’t responded to Obeidallah’s libel lawsuit. Anglin’s whereabouts are unclear.
Last month, U.S. District Court Judge Edmund Sargus Jr. agreed to enter a default judgment against Anglin and his company, Moonbase Holdings LLC.
Sargus announced the award after a Wednesday morning hearing.
The judge said he was convinced nothing in Anglin’s statements were protected speech under the First Amendment. He also issued an injunction ordering the materials about Obeidallah be taken down from the website and forbidding Anglin from discussing them further.
During the hearing, Obeidallah explained the shock he felt after Anglin published an article about him in June 2017, alleging that he was responsible for the May 2017 terrorist attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England.
In his lawsuit, Obeidallah alleged the site embedded fabricated messages in the post to make them seem like they had been sent from Obeidallah’s Twitter account, tricking readers into believing he took responsibility for the Manchester attack. That mix of real and fake tweets made the article all the more insidious, Obeidallah testified Wednesday.
Afterward, he received death threats and now worries about his safety and that of his family, he testified.
In the lawsuit, Obeidallah said Anglin libeled him, invaded his privacy and intentionally inflicted “emotional distress.”