The Associated Press filed a motion to dismiss U.S. Navy Veteran Zachary Young's defamation lawsuit on Monday, insisting the complaint is "without merit" and unjustly challenges the outlet's free speech rights.
Young successfully sued CNN for defamation earlier this year after saying the network smeared him by implying he illegally profited when helping people flee Afghanistan on the "black market" during the Biden administration's military withdrawal from the country in 2021. When covering the trial in January, Associated Press media reporter David Bauder wrote that "Young's business helped smuggle people out of Afghanistan."
Young's legal team has said that the Associated Press article "went even further than CNN's falsehoods," and updated the original complaint to include 40 AP articles that use the term "smuggling" to describe criminal conduct. The court previously ruled that Young did nothing illegal, and he is seeking nearly $500 million in a defamation suit against the AP.
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The AP believes Young's suit should be tossed.
"It is premised on the facially implausible contention that The AP made the exact same accusation-that Young had engaged in criminal activities in connection with his Afghan evacuations-that the Article made clear a jury had rejected in the CNN case," AP's legal team wrote in the motion to dismiss.
"The AP now asks the Court to dismiss this lawsuit with prejudice under Florida's AntiSLAPP statute… which protect 'the rights of free speech in connection with public issues,'" the motion continued. "This is a classic SLAPP lawsuit - a 'lawsuit that lack[s] legal merit but threatens to chill speech by imposing crushing legal expenses.'"
The AP believes its reporting is protected by Florida's fair report privilege, which its legal team wrote "safeguards the ability of the press to report about legal and other official proceedings." In addition, the AP's legal team wrote that the article "cannot be reasonably read as conveying anything defamatory" about Young or his company, Nemex Enterprises.
NAVY VETERAN WHO PROVED CNN DEFAMED HIM SUES ASSOCIATED PRESS, SAYS HE WAS FALSELY PAINTED AS 'SMUGGLER'
Young's attorney, Daniel Lustig, said the motion to dismiss was expected, and he expects the Navy veteran to prevail.
"AP's position is that words don't mean what they mean. That was CNN's defense. Zachary Young spent nearly three years fighting that fiction and after a court ruled in his favor and a jury affirmed it, the matter should have ended. But now he's back in the same courtroom, facing the same defense, advanced by the same lawyers, insisting once again that a plainly criminal accusation doesn't actually accuse him of a crime," Lustig told Fox News Digital.
"If this feels familiar, it's because it is. The only thing that's changed is the logo on the letterhead. AP called Mr. Young a human smuggler, broadcast it around the world, and now claim they meant it in a nice way. When he asked them to correct a single word, they refused," he continued.
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The AP has referred to the lawsuit as "frivolous" in past statements to the press. The motion was filed with the 14th Judicial Circuit Court in Bay County, Florida, the same court where Young prevailed against CNN.
Young is seeking at least $18 million in economic loss, $50-75 million in reputational harm, $5-10 million in emotional distress and $300-350 million in punitive damages, according to a Notice of Filing.
