Fox News Cleared in Lawsuit Over Falsely Linking Man to Neo-Nazi Killer
The Texas man who was misidentified by several media outlets as a neo-Nazi mass shooter has voluntarily dismissed his claims against Fox News, admitting the network should not have been included in the lawsuit.
Fox News would be compensated “for its trouble,” said Mark Bankston, the lawyer of plaintiff Mauricio Garcia, on Thursday. The case will continue against eight remaining defendants, however, including Newsmax, Univision, and right-wing provocateurs Stephen Crowder and Owen Shroyer.
Texas native Garcia, 36, was erroneously identified last year by some outlets and podcasts as the killer of the same name who opened fire on an Allex, TX outlet mall, killing eight people. After the shooter was found to have shared white supremacist beliefs online and had Nazi SS and swastika tattoos, an old mugshot of the plaintiff was shared by conservative media outlets and pundits using it to sow doubt about the deceased suspect’s extremist and racist motivations.