NJ comic takes on neo-Nazis and wins $4.1 million judgment

A comic and radio host from Paramus took on one of the biggest neo-Nazi platforms on the web — and won.

On Wednesday, a federal court ordered The Daily Stormer to pay $4.1 million to Dean Obediallah for publishing false and defamatory statements. The website had falsely smeared him as a terrorist and claimed he was behind the bombing days earlier at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, prompting angry comments and threats against him.

"Any $ I collect will be donated to organizations that fight hate," Obeidallah wrote on Twitter. "The goal of this lawsuit is to send a message to these Trump loving white supremacists that they will not silence me or any of the people in the groups they hate, be they Black, Jewish, Muslim, LGBT, immigrant, etc.

"We will neither cower in fear nor stop speaking out. Rather we will stand up to them by using the courts, getting judgments and collecting every last dollar they have."

In June 2017, the Daily Stormer published an article entitled “Dean Obeidallah, Mastermind Behind Manchester Bombing, Calls on Trump to Declare Whites the Real Terrorists." The article included fabricated tweets saying he had claimed responsibility for the attack and was an "ISIS terrorist" wanted by international authorities. The tweets were faked to look like they were posted on his account.

Obeidallah sued The Daily Stormer and Andrew Anglin, the website's founder and the author of the story. Anglin, who has been in hiding, failed to contest the lawsuit. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio granted Obeidallah the full award of $4.1 million and ordered that the defaming articles be removed, according to the group Muslim Advocates.

“This is a victory for all American Muslims in public life and for everyone who opposes hate,” said Juvaria Khan, senior staff attorney at Muslim Advocates. “The uncontroverted evidence shows that the Daily Stormer knowingly published false smears based on fabricated evidence. That is not free speech—that is a dangerous, reckless disregard for the truth.”

The Muslim-American comic is the host of "The Dean Obeidallah Show," which airs five evenings a week on SiriusXM’s Progress station. Obeidallah also writes weekly for The Daily Beast and CNN.com's opinion section.

Although the claims against the media personality were outrageous given his public persona, Obeidallah said he was concerned that people would believe it.

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“In today’s world, where outlandish comments can activate people to do horrible things, this couldn’t be dismissed,” Obeidallah said in an interview last year.

The Daily Stormer, once one of the top hate sites in the United States, was booted by its Web hosting company, GoDaddy, in 2017 after a post insulting Heather Heyer, who was killed in a car attack during a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. 

The Daily Stormer bounced around other Web hosts since then, while Anglin continues to hide from the courts. 

“American Muslims should be able to take part in public life without being threatened or attacked,” Obeidallah said. “This ruling sends a clear message that Muslim voices will not be silenced by threats and hate.”