Angel earns wins
Sliwa beats lawsuit

by Kati Cornell
New York Post
October 10, 2009

http://www.legal-project.org/502/angel-earns-wins

Excerpt:

It was faster than you can say "unindicted co-conspirator."

A Brooklyn jury took almost no time to decide Curtis Sliwa did not libel an imam who sued the Guardian Angels founder for $5 million over televised comments he made that members of the imam's mosque had taken guns into Canada.

Sliwa said on the stand yesterday that he once respected Siraj Wahhaj, but his opinion of the Bedford-Stuyvesant imam changed when the cleric supported the 1993 World Trade Center bombers. Wahhaj was identified by US Attorney Mary Jo White as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in that attack.

"The Gottis tried to kill me twice and it never shut me up," a beaming Sliwa said after the verdict. "The imam tried to sue me for much more money than I'll ever have. This is a much better way. It's more civil."

During the two-day trial, Wahhaj accused Sliwa of smearing him during a televised panel discussion in March 2003, when he said members of the imam's mosque had trafficked guns to Canada.

But the jury didn't buy it for a second, according to juror Jacqueline Lopez, 43.

Read the complete original version of this item...

Related Topics:  Lawfare in the United States receive the latest by email: subscribe to the legal project's free mailing list