The Associated Press has been sued for defamation by Zachary Young, who earlier this year was awarded $5 million in a libel lawsuit against CNN over a 2021 report falsely portraying him as a profiteer running a “black market” scheme to evacuate Afghans in the aftermath of the U.S. military withdrawal from the country.
Young, in a lawsuit filed in Florida state court, claims AP defamed him by saying that he ran a business that “helped smuggle” people out of Afghanistan in its report about the verdict. He alleges that the outlet’s characterization of his efforts to evacuate individuals from the country implies he’s a criminal.
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“This statement is categorically false,” the complaint reads. “At the time of publication, AP knew or recklessly disregarded that a Florida court had already ruled Plaintiff committed no crime in connection with the Afghanistan evacuations. Mr. Young never ‘smuggled’ anyone.”
In a statement, AP said its story was a “factual and accurate report on the jury verdict finding in Zachary Young’s favor.” It added, “We will vigorously defend our reporting against this frivolous lawsuit.”
The lawsuit is the third that Young has filed over the press’ depiction of his business. Last month, he also sued Puck News for a line in its story about the case that read he charged “panicked locals … hefty fees — sometimes tens of thousands of dollars — to escape the Taliban.”
The complaints stem from a Florida jury in January finding that CNN defamed Young, a U.S. Navy veteran and security consultant. Following the verdict, a settlement was reached to resolve the entirety of the case before jurors could calculate punitive damages, which is intended to punish malicious conduct and could’ve added millions more to the total award, for an unspecified amount.
Multiple outlets reported the verdict, including AP. Young takes issue with a line in its article that says his “business helped smuggle people out of Afghanistan,” which adds that he “worked exclusively with deep-pocketed outside sponsors like Bloomberg and Audible.”
The lawsuit alleges that the story accuses him of running an illegal smuggling operation bankrolled by wealthy sponsors. “To ‘smuggle’ people implies covertly and unlawfully transporting them across borders,” writes Daniel Lustig, a lawyer for Young, in the complaint filed on April 11. “That is not what Mr. Young did. The Afghans he assisted were evacuated through lawful means or with tacit approval from relevant authorities during a time of chaos; none were ‘smuggled’ in the sense of violating immigration or criminal laws.”
AP allegedly neglected to reach out to Young for comment and ignored a demand for retraction, according to the complaint.
Young says that existing and prospective clients for Nemex, his security consulting company, have been deterred from working with him because of the article.
In his lawsuit against Puck News, filed on March 28, Young targets the story omitting internal CNN emails revealed in discovery, which he says was to imply that his claims were “frivolous and that he was guilty of what CNN had accused him.” He also says that the article inaccurately speculated that he won his lawsuit against CNN because the trial took place in “one of Florida’s deepest-red outposts.”
The entirety of the passage Young says is defamatory reads, “reporter Alex Marquardt detailed how, following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and the collapse of the government, panicked locals turned to private contractors to help them flee the country. One such contractor was Zachary Young, a Navy Veteran whose firm was charging people hefty fees—sometimes tens of thousands of dollars—to escape the Taliban.”
“Puck stands behind our reporting and we are confident the facts will hold up to any scrutiny,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.
