FILE - In this June 25, 2015 file photo, Muslim comedian Dean Obeidallah speaks at a news conference ... [+]
A federal judge today ordered the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer and its controversial editor Andrew Anglin to pay $4.1 million to Muslim Comedian Dean Obeidallah for falsely accusing him of being the mastermind behind the 2017 terrorist attack at a U.K. pop concert that left 22 dead.
According to the New York Times, Obeidallah earned the ire of Anglin for a 2015 Daily Beast column that spoke of the “ bone-chilling attraction to Trump by white nationalist groups. It’s almost like they view Trump’s candidacy as their last stand against the changing demographics of America. He’s become the poster child for their philosophy that “White Lives Matter More.’
Daily Stormer readers took offense to Obeidallah’s comment and threatened him with bodily harm over social media and in the story’s comments section, according to the paper.’
In a June 13 ruling, Chief U.S. District Judge Edmund A. Sargus Jr. of the Southern District of Ohio, noted that the website Anglin founded in 2013 that denigrates Jews and other minorities “acted with actual malice when they published false statements… that Obedallah committed crimes of terror, including murder.”
Sargus awarded Obeidallah $3.28 million in punitive damages along with $470,000 in economic damages and $350,000 in non-economic damages along with his attorneys fees and costs. He also issued a permanent injunction ordering the removal of any content that describes Obeidallah as a terrorist or a member of ISIS.
Enforcing the court’s order may be difficult since Anglin’s whereabouts are unknown and he is thought to be living outside the U.S. He didn’t respond to an email request for comment for this story and didn’t retain a lawyer to fight Obeidalllah’s lawsuit. There also was no discussion of the case on The Daily Stormer website, which calls itself “the most censored publication in history.”
Anglin has other legal troubles.
The Southern Poverty Law Center filed suit against in 2017 after he organized an harassment campaign against Tanya Gersh, a Jewish Realtor from Whitefish, Mont., after she urged Shari Spencer,, the mother of White Supremacist Richard Spencer, to sell her condo and donate some of the proceeds to the Montana Human Rights Network to avoid a public backlash. Anglin failed to show up for a deposition in the case in May in New York City, setting the stage for a default judgment.
American University student leader Taylor Dumpson filed suit against Anglin last year after he urged followers to harass after she became the African-American woman to serve as student government president at the Washington, D.C. college.
According to the Anti Defamation League, Anglin is controversial even among other white supremacists because he’s reportedly had romantic relationships with Asian women. He is funding his operations with Bitcoin and reportedly got a $60,000 donation of the cryptocurrency in 2017 from an unknown benefactor after the controversial Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The Times reported that Obeidallah host of The Dean Obeidallah Show on SiriusXM and weekly I Want To Be Your Muslim Friend podcast, was planning to donate his award to organizations fighting white supremacy.
