Glenn Beck settles with student who sued him over false Marathon bombing accusations
Conservative pundit Glenn Beck has reached an out-of-court settlement with a Saudi Arabian student and Massachusetts resident he falsely accused of being connected to the Boston Marathon bombings.
Abdulrahman Alharbi—a Revere resident injured in the bombing—sued Beck and his media companies in 2014 in federal court for slander and defamation for continuing to tie the 20-year-old student to the bombings, even after law enforcement officials exonerated him.
According to a statement Tuesday by the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts, the two sides settled outside of court. The statement, which was first reported Tuesday by Politico, did not reveal the details of the settlement.
Beck had accused Alharbi of being the “money man” in the Tsarnaev brothers’ plot, which ultimately left four people dead.
As the Washington Post reported shortly after the bombings, federal investigators made it explicit that Alharbi was a witness, rather than a suspect. In a May 2013 interview with The Islamic Monthly, Alharbi said he feared for his life after his name and address were circulated on the internet (Boston magazine published the original lawsuit when it was first filed).
In a joint statement Tuesday, the two sides said neither admitted “any fault, wrongdoing, or responsibility as part of the settlement.”
“The Plaintiff has pursued this action for the reasons set forth in his Complaint and believes those interests have been served by this resolution,” the statement read.
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