CHEYENNE, Wyo. — According to Baldwin ‘s counsel, the actor did not have to pay anything to settle a $25 million lawsuit filed by family relatives of a Marine slain in Afghanistan after the actor reprimanded them on social media about the Jan. 6, 2021, insurgency at the United States Capitol.
The wife and sisters of Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum of Jackson, Wyoming, filed a case with Judge Edgardo Ramos of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in August. When the McCollum family did not file an amended lawsuit by the September deadline, as Ramos requested, the case was closed in October.
Alec paid nothing to settle the dispute, his attorney Luke Nikas said in an email to The Associated Press on Wednesday.
According to court filings, there has been no activity in the matter since. When contacted via email Thursday, lawyers for both parties, including McCollum family attorney Dennis Postiglione, declined to comment further on the issue. Postiglione, reached by email Wednesday, declined to speak and claimed the McCollum family would not comment.
Family Of Marine Killed In Afghanistan Fails To Win Lawsuit Against Alec Baldwin
Rylee McCollum and 12 other Marines were killed in a suicide attack at Kabul International Airport during the final days of the United States’ war in Afghanistan in 2021. Baldwin sent the family a $5,000 check to assist them.
The lawsuit, filed in Wyoming and then New York, claimed Baldwin exposed the family to a flood of social media hatred in 2022 when she claimed on Instagram that Roice McCollum was an “insurrectionist” for attending former President Donald Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, rally in Washington, D.C., which preceded the insurgency that day.
According to the lawsuit, Roice McCollum protested peacefully and legally, was not among those who stormed the U.S. Capitol and was never arrested or charged after being examined by the FBI.
Nonetheless, Ramos decided to reject the claim that she was a “limited public figure” under the law since she spoke about her brother’s death in the news and spoke with Baldwin, a well-known celebrity, on social media.
Family Of Marine Killed In Afghanistan Fails To Win Lawsuit Against Alec Baldwin
McCollum needed to show that Baldwin acted maliciously toward her to make her case as a limited public figure. Ramos decided that Baldwin’s statements were protected by his free speech rights because she did not.
Baldwin filed the complaint as he faced legal ramifications for the murder of a cinematographer on a New Mexico film set in 2021. Baldwin was pointing a gun at Halyna Hutchins when it went off, killing her and injuring director Joel Souza.
Special prosecutors first dropped an involuntary manslaughter allegation against Baldwin, but after presenting fresh evidence to a grand jury, they are seeking to recharge him.
SOURCE – (AP)
