In a Friday filing with Florida’s 14th Judicial Circuit in Bay County, Navy veteran Zachary Young filed a defamation suit against the Associated Press for making similar claims against him which led to CNN being found liable for malicious defamation. The complaint pointed out that the AP used similar rhetoric against Young that they used for criminal conduct and that they refused to publish “any retraction or correction.”
According to the filing, exclusively obtained by NewsBusters, “AP blatantly accused Mr. Young of engaging in criminal human smuggling” [emphasis added in the document].
The filing argues that the AP’s reporting falsely suggested that Young was committing a felony under United States federal law:
In its article, AP published the defamatory statement, with actual malice, that Mr. Young’s business “helped smuggle people out…
