Left: Conservative conspiracist Jacob Wohl gives an interview at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Md., March 2, 2023. (Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images). Right: NOV 1, 2018: Jack Burkman speaks to the media about alleged allegations against Robert Mueller at the Holiday Inn in Rosslyn, Va. Not pictured here but standing next to Burkman in same photo at press conference was also Jacob Wohl. (Credit Image: © John Middlebrook/CSM via ZUMA Wire) (Cal Sport Media via AP Images)
A U.S. Marine veteran and immigration lawyer has sued soon-to-be-disbarred attorney and right-wing operative Jack Burkman — as well as his conspiracy theorist and fellow huckster Jacob Wohl — in a lawsuit alleging the duo destroyed his life after they catfished him and falsely accused the 36-year-old of having sex with an underage teen he met on Tinder.
The new lawsuit reviewed Tuesday by Law&Crime hammers Burkman and Wohl with a series of allegations that paint a horrific picture of what the veteran and Maryland resident says he went through just so Burkman and Wohl could keep reaping in cash from their donors.
As the lawsuit notes, the history of fraud trailing Burkman and Wohl is extensive. Both of them pleaded guilty to a single felony count of fraud for targeting tens of thousands of Black voters using threatening robocalls meant to keep them away from the polls. And as the plaintiff notes, Wohl’s aim then and now continues to be to influence “mainstream media” by any means necessary.
Even if it means, the veteran outlined alleged while quoting Wohl himself, “‘making s— up and misdirecting with details aimed to confuse, leading to more inquiry.””
The plaintiff is identified in court records only as John Doe to protect his privacy and according to the 31-page lawsuit filed in a federal court in Virginia, the problems began when he met a single mother who identified herself as “Sarah” on Tinder.
Single and looking for companionship at the time, the plaintiff says he spoke to “Sarah” a few times. She told him she was 36 years old. They spoke two or three times and never used sexual language, nor did they trade photos.
The plaintiff said when they finally decided to meet up, she invited him to her home in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Driving to the residence, the plaintiff said once he arrived, the door swung open and there was the woman he thought to be the 36-year-old “Sarah.”
But moments after he entered the home, he “realized that there were hidden cameras in the apartment” and that’s when Burkman, Wohl and at least three other men — including at least one man armed with a handgun — encircled him.
Much like the popular television show, “To Catch a Predator,” the victim said he found himself bewildered and surrounded as Wohl and Burkman with “cameras rolling and in a very aggressive manner” approached him and accused him of coming to the house to have sex with a 16-year-old girl.
The man said he repeatedly told Wohl and Burkman they were mistaken and that the conversation quickly became “heated.”
Once he threatened to call the police on Burkman and Wohl, they finally started to back down.
“We’re listening to your side of the story,” they allegedly told the plaintiff while repeating things like, “we haven’t done anything wrong” and “we are just investigating.”
The plaintiff says Burkman and Wohl called it an “innocent mixup” and vowed that “you’ll not hear anything about it again,” and at one point even addressed the plaintiff directly and told him: “It’s over, it’s over.”
Their role-playing, however, cost the plaintiff his job at a local law firm and led to his eviction from his apartment.
The lawsuit alleges that despite all of their protests during that fateful meeting at the house in Maryland, Wohl and Burkman promised to back off and didn’t want the police involved because it would interfere with their ability to “catch” other “predators.”
The plaintiff says he left the house that August shaken but under the belief Wohl and Burkman would destroy whatever video they had shot that day under the false pretenses of their “set-up.”
Instead, a few months later, the victim says the duo posted a video on YouTube for their series “exposing” child predators in the nation’s capital called, “Predator DC: Episode Four.”
It was lewdly labeled online as “Across the Border and Into a Teen” and in the video sequence, the plaintiff says Wohl and Burkman made false and defamatory statements about him either directly or indirectly. Wohl went so far as to publish a press release with the video that included the false claim that the plaintiff was married.
“Upon information and belief, Defendant Wohl did this after seeing a photo of Plaintiff online, in which Plaintiff was wearing his Marine Corps dress blues with his wife at that time, who was African American. However, Plaintiff was no longer married at the time of the incident in question, on August 29, 2021, or subsequent thereto on February 16, 2022, when the video was publicized,” attorney John Flood wrote.
The video made several derogatory implications about the plaintiff and also featured Burkman reveling: “Oh [redacted] … you thought by screaming and yelling you could get out of being a pedophile.”
Burkman repeatedly called the plaintiff a “pedophile” and insisted he had “prey[ed] upon a 16 year old girl.”
According to the lawsuit, the Marine veteran said he contacted the FBI after the incident in Gaithersburg, providing the agency with copies of his text messages with “Sarah.”
“Personnel from the FBI advised Plaintiff that such communications did not make any representations of any age for “Sarah” aside from the age listed on her Tinder profile (i.e. 36). In other words, Plaintiff had no reason to think that Sarah was purportedly 16 years old (which she was not),” the complaint alleges.
Wohl and Burkman allegedly tried to harass the plaintiff again after he had turned his profile off. Wohl and Burkman, again pretending to be another “of age woman” on Tinder, contacted him.
“Plaintiff knew was the case because he had closed his Tinder account after the incident. Hiding behind their falsely created identity, they requested personal information about Plaintiff’s work, and Plaintiff advised them that he had contacted the FBI,” Flood wrote.
Then, suddenly, the plaintiff lost his job at John’s Hopkins University without explanation.
This is because, the plaintiff alleges, Wohl and Burkman called John’s Hopkins and falsely told them they had incriminating information about their employee. They also attempted to contact his ex-wife, and, he claims, he was forced to immediately vacate his apartment one day after moving into it after his landlord researched him and found a Google result containing the false allegations perpetuated by Wohl and Burkman.
A month after he lost his apartment, he was fired.
“Plaintiff was notified he was being let go of his current job at an immigration law firm due to an online post, now second in Google results when searching his name. They said they found the site from Plaintiff’s prior landlord. It was not safe to return due to threats relating to the post,” the complaint said.
Burkman and Wohl funded every element of their scam through the robocall fraud, also known as Project 1599, the plaintiff says:
As Plaintiffs had done through thousands of illegal robocalls, across multiple states, which contained false information to try and intimidate African American voters and choose not to vote by mail, Defendants Wohl, Burkman, and J.M. Burkman & Associates — through Project 1599 — once again conveyed false information through the internet in order to generate publicity and to raise money to continue to fund Project 1599. This constituted wire fraud and would be subject to indictment under 18 U.S.C. § 1343.3
Flood says his client has spent roughly $30,000 in legal fees to force Burkman and Wohl to remove the video from the internet.
The Daily Beast was first to report the lawsuit. Calls to Burkman as well as to the plaintiff’s attorney were not immediately returned to Law&Crime.
The plaintiff has asked that there be a jury trial to determine damages and that an award of at least $148,000 be issued in compensatory damages. Punitive damages should be awarded at no less than $350,000. He has also asked that an order be issued directing both Burkman and Wohl not to distribute the video any further, or any photos of the plaintiff.
A key detail in the lawsuit notes that, unseemly though it may be, even if the veteran had in fact gone to the house to meet the ultimately nonexistent 16-year-old girl, the agent of consent in Maryland is 16.
“It is not a crime for an adult to have consensual sexual relations with a female who is 16 years of age or older,” the complaint says. “Defendants did not communicate this information when they defamed [Doe] through the YouTube video at issue, because they wanted viewers of the video to think that [Doe] was in fact a pedophile and a predator — which is not true.”
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