The family of a US Marine killed in Afghanistan is suing Alec Baldwin for $25 million, claiming that after the actor accused one of them of taking part in the Capitol rioting on January 6, they were subjected to internet vilification.
According to The Mercury News, Roice and Cheyenne McCollum, who reside in Wyoming, and Jiennah McCollum, who lives in San Diego, filed a defamation complaint on Friday in a New York court.
A Wyoming judge dropped their prior complaint in May after ruling that the court lacked jurisdiction over Baldwin, who is located in New York City.
According to the New York Post, Roice is the sister of Rylee McCollum, a US Marine who tragically perished in August 2021 during the US military’s abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan. The 20-year-old was one of 13 marines who were slain outside Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport by a suicide bomber.
Jiennah McCollum, his pregnant wife, gave birth some weeks after her latter husband’s passing. He left her behind.
Baldwin gave $5,000 to the deceased father’s GoFundMe page after learning of his passing, referring to it in the lawsuit as a “tribute to a dead soldier.”
The allegations are related to a later online exchange between Baldwin and Roice, Rylee’s sister.
The young woman appeared to be a part of the January 6 uprising, which saw a crowd of protesters rush the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., following Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 presidential election, in an image that she had shared on Instagram (which has since been removed).
Baldwin remembered Roice’s name and identified her as the sister of the US Marine who had passed away, even though Roice was not the woman in the image. The 64-year-old actor wrote in the image’s comments: Are you the same woman that I sent the $ to for your sister’s husband who was killed during the Afghanistan exit[?]”
The conversation then allegedly progressed to Roice’s Instagram direct messaging, where Baldwin allegedly sent McCollum the following message: “When I sent the $ for your late brother, out of real respect for his service to this country, I didn’t know you were a January 6th rioter.”
After that, Baldwin reposted the picture to his own account, which had over 2 million followers. As a result, Roice began to get abuse from internet trolls in less than an hour. According to the lawsuit, Roice received “hostile, aggressive, nasty remarks,” according to the New York Post.
The lawsuit claims that despite Rylee’s widow not even being in DC at the time, Baldwin incorrectly labeled her as a January 6 insurrectionist. Additionally, it claims that the 30 Rock actor did nothing to halt the vitriol aimed at the McCollum family.
“Baldwin’s conduct was negligent and reckless as he should have known that making the allegations he did against Plaintiffs to his millions of followers would cause Plaintiffs harm,” the lawsuit states, via the New York Post.
According to The Mercury News, the family is requesting $15 million in punitive damages in addition to court fees and compensatory damages of $10 million. They have also requested a jury trial.
