Navy Vet Didn't Want CNN To I-D Him

A security consultant testified in the second day of his defamation trial against CNN, as his attorney ran through a series of text messages with the network reporters.

Zachary Young claims that he was defamed by a a false 2021 report that tarred him with exploiting Afghan family members by charging exorbitant fees to get them out of the country during the chaotic U.S. withdrawal.

On the stand today, Deadline reports Young testified about his interactions with CNN’s Katie Bo Lillis on Nov. 3, 2021. Young said that he reached out to the network because he thought they needed help in evacuation operations from Afghanistan. But Lillis told him that she was actually working on some reporting related to ongoing efforts to help get at-risk Afghans out of the country and your name came up in a couple of conversations recently.” He said that he would cooperate with the story but did not want to be named.

“I didn’t ask for anything in return except to not be named in the story,” Young told jurors in the Florida courtroom.

Lillis, though, pressed him to talk to her on the phone, and wrote, “Our understanding is you’re asking for $75,000 for people to Pakistan and around $15,000 for a single person to the UAE. That seems exorbitant for folks who clearly don’t have that kind of money.”

Young, though, texted that “Pricing always depends on local resource availability at any given time in a highly unstable environment. No Afghan is expected to pay for evacuation costs. None would ever be able to.”

He told the jury that what he was doing was working with people who had sponsors or with corporations that had the resources to support the evacuations. Lillis pressed him on evacuation costs and wrote, “How does the math work?” She wrote, “We’re not in any rush. Getting it right is why I’m talking to you.” He then texted to Lillis, “No, I can’t, because I’m not on the ground and don’t understand the challenges. When I find an option that works, I try to find candidates.

Young said that he was given only two hours to respond to the story when another reporter, Alexander Marquardt, later reached out to him. In a text message, Young wrote back, “That’s definitely not a realistic deadline. In any case, I can tell you for sure, some of your facts/assertions for [sic] are not accurate, and if they are published, I will seek legal damages.” Marquardt said that he had reached out to him via phone and LinkedIn the week before.