Texas court dismisses ‘Clock Boy’ defamation lawsuit

Following a nearly three-hour hearing held yesterday in Dallas, Texas, newly appointed District Court Judge Maricela Moore dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed by Mohamed Mohamed on his own behalf and on behalf of his 15-year old son, Ahmed Mohamed.

Ahmed is better known as “Clock Boy” for bringing a hoax clock bomb to his Irvine, Texas middle school in September 2015 and causing a bomb scare that led to his arrest and suspension from school.

The American Freedom Law Center (AFLC) filed the motion to dismiss, along with local counsel Pete Rowe, on behalf of the Center for Security Policy (“CSP”) and Jim Hanson, two of the defendants in the defamation case, which also named as defendants the local Fox affiliate, Glenn Beck, and Beck’s Production Company.

Mohamed had sued Hanson and CSP for statements Hanson had made on Beck’s program about the connection between the Clock Boy hoax bomb affair, the attendant media frenzy created in large part by his father Mohamed, civilization jihad, and the Counsel on American-Islamic Relations (“CAIR”), the Muslim Brotherhood-Hamas front group in the United States that promotes civilization jihad.

During the hearing, AFLC co-founder and senior counsel David Yerushalmi explained to Judge Moore that the purpose of the lawfare-driven lawsuit was to intimidate into silence those who might comment publicly on the connection between jihad, terrorism, sharia, and Islam.  As such, Yerushalmi argued,

“This case is a classic Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation or ‘SLAPP’ case and should be dismissed.”

During the lengthy hearing, Judge Moore pressed Mohamed’s lawyer, Fort Worth attorney Susan Hutchison, to provide any facts that would suggest that Hanson and the other defendants had said anything false or defamatory about Mohamed or his son during the television broadcasts. 

After spending a painfully embarrassing 15 minutes flipping through reams of paper, Mohamed’s lawyer was unable to provide any such evidence.

At the conclusion of the hearing, Judge Moore took the matter under advisement but informed the parties that she would rule by the end of the day.  Today, the Court published Judge Moore’s ruling dismissing the lawsuit against Hanson and CSP with prejudice.

Upon leaving the courtroom, Yerushalmi explained:

“This lawsuit filed by Clock Boy’s father is yet another example of Islamist lawfare, which is a component of the Muslim Brotherhood’s civilization jihad.”

Yerushalmi further explained that the purpose of such lawsuits, formally labelled Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (“SLAPP”), is to intimidate into silence those who might comment publicly on the connection between jihad, terrorism, sharia, and Islam.

Yerushalmi added:

“The Islamists employ the progressive mainstream media to label any public criticism of a sharia-centric, jihad-driven Islam as ‘Islamophobic,’ and they add fear and financial ruin to the equation by utilizing the legal system to file SLAPP actions,”

Now that the lawsuit has been dismissed, AFLC will petition the court for its legal fees and will seek sanctions against both the plaintiff and his attorney.

Robert Muise, AFLC’s other co-founder and senior counsel, made clear:

“AFLC was formed in large measure to take on Islamists like CAIR who use and abuse the legal system with their cynical form of lawfare to undermine our constitutional liberties—notably free speech.  We have confronted these lawsuits across the country in federal and state courts and have defeated CAIR and its minions at every turn.  When appropriate, we have won sanctions.  This lawsuit will be no different.”