Attorneys representing Covington Catholic student Nicholas Sandmann have filed a lawsuit against the Washington Post this week seeking $250 million in damages, Newsweek reported.
Lin Wood and Todd McMurty, who are with the Kentucky-based law firm Hemmer DeFrank Wessels, filed the suit on Tuesday, February 19, and announced the news with a statement on the firm’s website entitled “For truth, for justice, for Nicholas!” The note explained that the lawsuit is seeking “both compensatory and punitive damages,” and that the Washington Post is just the first of many “wrongdoers” that they plan to take to court in order to seek compensation “for the harm so many have done to the Sandmann family.”
“This is only the beginning,” the statement said, before revealing the full text of the firm’s lawsuit that claims, among other things, that the publication engaged in “a modern-day form of McCarthyism” by competing with other news sources such as CNN and NBC to “claim leadership of a mainstream and social media mob of bullies” that attacked Nicholas.
The 16-year-old highschooler made headlines weeks ago on January 18 after a video went viral showing Nicholas, who was on a school trip in Washington, D.C., for the annual March for Life rally, sporting a red “Make America Great Again” hat and locked in a stare down with Native American elder Nathan Phillips, who was playing a drum and chanting at the Indigenous Peoples March. As previously reported by the Inquisitr , Nicholas and his high school were faced with a slew of backlash following the clip’s virality.
Days after the first clip surfaced on social media, Newsweek noted that other lengthier videos surfaced providing more context to the encounter, with some revealing that both the Covington Catholic High School students and participants of the Indigenous Peoples Rally were being taunted by a group of men that identify as members of the Hebrew Israelites.
Covington Catholic student Nicholas Sandmann and his parents have filed a defamation lawsuit against the Washington Post for $250 million, accusing the publication of falsely characterizing him as racist. https://t.co/f1ZxflLCut
— Axios (@axios) February 20, 2019
The lawsuit against the Washington Post claims that the publication “wrongfully targeted” Nicholas because he is a white male wearing a “MAGA” hat, and that the Post conveyed that Sandmann “engaged in acts of racism,” therefore ignoring basic journalistic principles because it “wanted to advance its well-known” and “biased agenda” against President Donald Trump.
“The Post bullied an innocent child with an absolute disregard for the pain and destruction its attacks would cause to his life,” the lawsuit claimed.
A spokeswoman for the Washington Post told CNN Business that the paper is actively reviewing the suit and plans “to mount a vigorous defense.”
