The US Marines’ Family Rylee J. McCollum re-filed the case against the actor Alec Baldwin for defamation in New York, according to a complaint filed Friday.
Rylee’s widow Jiennah McCollum and Rylee’s sisters Roice McCollum and Cheyenne McCollum are seeking $25 million in damages.
They accuse Baldwin of making false allegations against the family, including allegedly calling Roice McCollum an “insurrectionary” in January 2022 after she posted a photo of a crowd of protesters in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021 on social media.
“While she was present at the demonstration [de 6 de janeiro]Roice did not participate in, support, or condone the riots that broke out,” the lawsuit states.
“Baldwin clearly ignored Roice’s denial of riots and the assertion that she was exonerated by the FBI of participating in any conduct that Baldwin chose to falsely attribute to her through her mass following.”
The sisters and widow filed a similar lawsuit against Baldwin in Wyoming in January. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in May, concluding that he had no jurisdiction over Baldwin as he lives in New York.
At the time, Baldwin’s attorney, Luke Nikas, welcomed the decision. He said the lawsuit sought to “punish Baldwin for expressing his political views.”
The re-filed lawsuit also claims that Baldwin’s comments resulted in severe emotional distress for the plaintiffs.
“Mr. Baldwin donated several thousand dollars to Mrs. McCollum to honor her husband, and now she is suing him for more because she disagrees with his political views on the insurrection that took place on January 6 at the US Capitol. this process, as we did the last time they opened it,” Nikas told CNN on Wednesday.
Rylee McCollum, 20, was one of 13 US servicemen who were killed in an attack outside Kabul airport last August as the US and other Western countries rushed to evacuate their citizens and allies from Afghanistan.
After Rylee’s death, an online fundraiser was started on behalf of his widow, Jiennah, and their son. Baldwin sent Roice a check for $5,000 to share with Jiennah as “a tribute to a fallen soldier,” the lawsuit states.
However, the lawsuit claims that after Roice posted photos of the protesters in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021 to his Instagram account on January 3, “in anticipation of the one-year anniversary of his participation on January 6, 2021 2022” at the protest, Baldwin commented on Roice’s post, “Are you the same woman I sent the $ to your sister’s husband who was killed while leaving Afghanistan?”
Roice “has never been arrested, arrested, charged or convicted of any crime associated with her participation in the January 6, 2021 event in Washington, DC,” the lawsuit said.
She responded to Baldwin, according to the lawsuit, that: “Protesting is perfectly legal in the country and I’ve already sat down with the FBI. Thank you have a good day!”
Baldwin responded, the lawsuit states, “I don’t think so. His activities resulted in the illegal destruction of government property, the death of a police officer, an attack on the presidential election certification. I reposted your photo. Good luck.”
Approximately 20 minutes after Baldwin posted it on Roice’s “Instagram feed,” she “began to receive hostile, aggressive and hateful messages from Baldwin’s followers,” the lawsuit alleges.
Baldwin also posted a message on his own Instagram feed, which he later deleted, stating, “Too many Trumpsters coming in here with the current cry that the Capitol attack was a protest (a more peaceful form that got a lot of other protesters arrested) and an exercise in democracy.”
His post continued, according to the screenshots included in the process: “I did some research. I found out on IG that this woman [Roice McCollum] is the brother (sic) of one of the men who was killed “killed” in Kabul, Afghanistan.
“I offered to send your sister-in-law [Jiennah McCollum] a few dollars as a tribute to his late brother, his widow and his son. What did I do. Like a tribute to a fallen soldier. So I find this. Truth is stranger than fiction,” his post added.
The lawsuit states that Baldwin “understood unequivocally that forwarding Roice’s Instagram feed to 2.4 million like-minded followers and posting his comment would result in the onslaught of threats and hatred he caused.”
Hours after Baldwin’s post, Lance’s other sister, Cheyenne, and his widow, Jiennah, began receiving “hate messages and even death threats,” according to the lawsuit. , DC on January 6, 2021,” the lawsuit states.
Source: CNN Brasil
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