Trans pilot falsely blamed in Potomac plane crash sues conservative influencer
A transgender military pilot filed a defamation lawsuit against a conservative influencer who falsely connected her to the Potomac River plane crash in January.
A transgender military pilot filed a defamation lawsuit Wednesday against a conservative influencer who falsely claimed on social media that she was flying the helicopter that collided with a commercial jet near Reagan National Airport in January, killing 67 people.
“I want to hold this person accountable for what they did to me,” Jo Ellis, a pilot who has served more than 15 years in the Virginia Army National Guard, said in a statement to NBC News. “It’s become too common that people can say horrible things about someone, profit at their expense, and get away with it.”
Jo Ellis created a "proof of life" video after false claims on social media linked her to the plane crash near Reagan National Airport in January.Jo EllisOn Jan. 30, less than 24 hours after the crash, conservative influencer Matt Wallace, who has 2.2 million followers on the social media platform X, shared a post from another account he operates stating that the helicopter pilot was transgender, according to the lawsuit. Wallace included a photo of Ellis, and the post went viral, the lawsuit states.
Wallace deleted that original post, according to the lawsuit, and then shared two others linking Ellis to the crash. One referred to an interview that Ellis did with The Smerconish Podcast, in which she said President Donald Trump’s executive order barring trans people from serving and enlisting in the military made her nervous.
The second post included photos of Ellis and said she might have participated in “another trans terror attack,” according to the lawsuit. That post received 4.8 million views on X, the suit states.
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