Five readers have filed a class-action lawsuit against former President Jimmy Carter for his book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.”
His publisher, Simon & Schuster, also was named in the lawsuit over the book published in 2006.
The lawsuit, Unterberg et al v. Jimmy Carter et al, was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. It alleges that the book contained “numerous false and knowingly misleading statements intended to promote the author’s agenda of anti-Israel propaganda and to deceive the reading public instead of presenting accurate information as advertised,” according to The Washington Post.
The five plaintiffs are asking for at least $5 million in compensatory as well as punitive and exemplary damages for the $27 book, according to the Post. Their suit charges Carter and Simon & Schuster with breach of contract, unjust enrichment and deceit.
The named plaintiff, Stephen Unterberg, is one of two dual U.S.-Israeli citizens living in New York and Israel pressing the suit. The others are from New Jersey, Minnesota and California.
Adam Rothberg, a spokesman for Simon & Schuster, called the lawsuit “frivolous” in a statement issued Wednesday.
“It is a chilling attack on free speech that we intend to defend vigorously,” he said.
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