Defamed high school student Nicholas Sandmann will likely sue the news network CNN for $250 million, his attorney Lin Wood told Fox News' Mark Levin in an interview set to air tonight on "Life, Liberty, and Levin."
via Fox News:
“CNN was probably more vicious in its direct attacks on Nicholas than The Washington Post. And CNN goes into millions of individuals' homes,” Wood told Fox News host and best-selling author Mark Levin.
“They really went after Nicholas with the idea that he was part of a mob that was attacking the Black Hebrew Israelites, yelling racist slurs at the Black Hebrew Israelites. Totally false.
“Now you say you've seen the tape; if you took the time to look at the full context of what happened that day, Nicholas Sandmann did absolutely nothing wrong. He was, as I've said to others, he was the only adult in the room. But you have a situation where CNN couldn't resist the idea that here's a guy with a young boy, that Make America Great Again cap on. So they go after him.”
Wood continued: “The CNN folks were online on Twitter at 7 a.m retweeting the little one-minute propaganda piece that had been put out. … They're out there right away going after this young boy. And they maintain it for at least two days. Why didn't they stop and just take an hour and look through the Internet and find the truth and then report it? Maybe do that before you report the lies.”
“I've got some young, smart lawyers that are working hard as we can," Wood added. "Double-checking, and listen, when we file complaints, we've investigated it because we want to get it right. Maybe CNN can learn from that." According to the attorney, the lawsuit will be filed Monday or Tuesday of this week.
Sandmann, a junior at Covington Catholic High School, sued numerous news organizations after a viral fake news story maligned him and his classmates as instigators and racial harassers against a Native American elder and three black Israelites during a pro-life march. This was not the case, but mainstream media outlets still ran with it leading to several lawsuits in wake of harassment and violent threats against the young boys.
The Washington Post, one of the organizations sued by Sandmann and his team of lawyers, issued a correction. But, that correction barely made up for any of the damages one of his legal representatives, Todd McMurty, told the media. McMurty said that "What The Washington Post put out is barely worth comment. WaPo committed gross journalistic malpractice and cannot undo its deeds with an editor's note that purports to correct the record over a month after it led a frenzied mob in trashing a minor's reputation. The Sandmanns would never accept half of a half-measure from an organization that still refuses to own up to its error."
Given the tenacity that Sandmann's lawyers are going after WaPo, it is reasonable to expect an even tougher legal battle for the media behometh CNN. Sandmann's attorney Wood told Levin, "I would think the punitive-damage award against CNN that we’ll seek will be at least the same $200 million as it was against The Washington Post. But the compensatory damage to Nicholas's reputation, that number I expect will be higher.”
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