A lawyer for the Covington Catholic High School student who came under attack after a video surfaced of him standing face-to-face with a Native American man says the $250 million lawsuit filed against The Washington Post, "isn't about the money, it's about the message."
"What we hope to accomplish with the lawsuit obviously is to obtain a large verdict," Todd McMurtry said during an appearance on Fox News. "And the reason we want to obtain a large verdict is so that things that things like the things that happened to Nick did not happen to others."
The newspaper, claims the lawsuit, used "its vast financial resources to enter the bully pulpit by publishing a series of false and defamatory print and online articles . . . to smear a young boy who was in its view an acceptable casualty in their war against the president."
Nick Sandmann, 16, was criticized in January for smirking while a Native American man, Nathaniel Phillips, chanted and beat a drum in front of him following a March for Life Rally in Washington, D.C. Many accused Sandmann of being disrespectful.
But the high school junior said he was just smiling.
Sandmann was accused of blocking Phillips from walking toward the Lincoln Memorial, but a longer video showed Phillips purposely walking toward Sandmann and a group of Covington Catholic students who were yelling. Sandmann was also accosted for wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat.
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