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Fresh Meadows - Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Queens) and Senate Deputy Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Long Island) introduced the "Libel Terrorism Protection Act" (S.6687/A.9652) on the front steps of The New York Public Library yesterday. The legislation will protect American authors and journalists from foreign lawsuits that infringe on their First Amendment rights.
Assemblyman Lancman and Senator Skelos were joined by Senator Martin Golden (R-Brooklyn), noted First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams and Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld, a New York author who was sued for libel in Britain by a Saudi businessman whom she identified in her book "Funding Evil - How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It" as a financial supporter of terrorist organizations.
In Ehrenfeld v. Mahfouz, New York State's highest court held last month that it would not protect Dr. Ehrenfeld from a British lawsuit filed by Saudi billionaire Khalid Salim Bin Mahfouz, where she was ordered to pay over $225,000 in damages and legal fees to Bin Mahfouz, as well as apologize and destroy existing copies of her books.