Updates to our Terms of Use

We are updating our Terms of Use. Please carefully review the updated Terms before proceeding to our website.

Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Spying on Muslim Group Could Cost Father & Son

WASHINGTON (CN) - A Muslim-American group can sue men who allegedly spied on it and wrote a book about their six-month surveillance, a federal judge ruled.

The Council on American-Islam Relations said David Gaubatz allegedly directed Chris Gaubatz, his son, to infiltrate the group for his book, "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America."

Chris Gaubatz's undercover persona called identified himself as David Marshall, a Muslim student at Ferrum College whose father worked in construction, according to the complaint. The council said Chris Gaubatz signed confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements as David Marshall.

During the internship, Chris Gaubatz routinely filled the trunk of his car with boxes of sensitive documents, the group claimed.

Those approximately 12,000 stolen documents included budget reports, real estate records, board meeting minutes, strategy papers, agendas and bank statements, according to the complaint.

David Gaubatz reproduced at least 19 of these documents in whole or in part in the "Muslim Mafia" book, the council said.

Documents, emails and company memos also appeared on David Gaubatz's blog, along with audio and visual recordings that Chris Gaubatz allegedly made of private council meetings, according to the compliant.

The council said that the Center for Security Policy helped organize the Gaubatzes' recordings, but U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly dismissed some claims against the group Monday.

It cannot be held liable under the Federal Wiretap Act because Chris Gaubatz allegedly intercepted council communications alone, the ruling states. The council does, however, can still claim that the center procured Chris Gaubatz for its operation in violation of the D.C. Wiretap Act.

It failed to support claims under the Stored Communications Act.

Kollar-Kotelly said the council can file a third amended complaint that adds as defendants the Society of Americans for National Existence and its president David Yerushalmi.

The council says this society and its figurehead conspired to infiltrate it by engaging David Gaubatz to "perform unspecified 'field work' and oversee the collection of 'field data.'"

Yerushalmi also serves as an attorney for the center.

Yerushalmi and the society must be served with this complaint by Oct. 1, 2012.

Categories / Uncategorized

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Loading...