Story highlights
Actress in "Innocence of Muslims" filed complaint alleging she was a victim of fraud
She'd sued the filmmaker and YouTube's parent company, saying she had been harmed
A judge denies her request that YouTube be ordered to take the video down from its site
The trailer for the film has stirred protests by Muslims worldwide
A California judge denied Thursday a request from an actress who, claiming she was a victim of fraud who’d been caused irreversible harm, wanted an inflammatory anti-Islam video in which she had appeared to be removed from YouTube’s website.
Cindy Lee Garcia, who was among those in “Innocence of Muslims,” had sued the producer of the film, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula – who authorities say has numerous aliases – alleging she is a victim of fraud, invasion of privacy and misappropriation of her likeness.
In her complaint, filed Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, Garcia also sued YouTube, the video-sharing website on which the film’s trailer is posted, and its parent company, Google. She alleged the company caused her irreparable harm by not removing the video from its site and asked a judge to order the trailer be taken down immediately.
YouTube attorney Timothy Alger, meanwhile, argued that federal law protects forums such as YouTube from abiding by such orders, from third parties, to remove videos.
Actress in anti-Islamic film files lawsuit against filmmaker and YouTube
On Thursday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Luis Lavin ruled the company can leave the video up online, denying Garcia’s request for a temporary restraining order.
Last week, the actress told CNN she had been unaware the filmmaker dubbed over dialogue in the movie and had inserted anti-Islam sentiments.
The producer’s representations that he “intended to make an ‘adventure film’ and that (the) plaintiff would be depicted as a concerned mother, were false,” Garcia alleges in her lawsuit.
The defendant “made an anti-Islam propaganda film, in which plaintiff is falsely made to appear to accuse the founder of the Islamic religion of being a sexual deviant and child molester,” says the complaint.
The lawsuit claims Garcia lost her job and her privacy since the film, on September 11, went from being an obscure Internet video to a target of Muslim protests worldwide. The film mocks the Islamic Prophet Mohammed as a womanizer, child molester and killer.
From Morocco to Malaysia, demonstrators in more than 20 countries have railed against the “Innocence of Muslims” and the United States, since the film was (privately) produced and disseminated in the country. Some of these groups have targeted U.S. diplomatic missions, including those who breached the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, and those who killed four Americans during an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
Garcia said that, since the video got widespread attention, she has received death threats and has not visited her grandchildren out of fear that they will be harmed.
Calls to representatives of Nakoula were not immediately returned.