A Covington Catholic High School graduate who is suing multiple media outlets over coverage of a viral video of him has fired high-profile attorney Lin Wood.
On Monday, Nick Sandmann terminated Wood from his legal team.
“I have ended my lawyer-client relationship with Mr. Wood and no longer wish to be represented by him in the above-captioned action,” Sandmann said in affidavits submitted in each of his six lawsuits still pending in federal court in Covington.
The 18-year-old is pursuing multiple lawsuits against media outlets over reporting about the video from a 2019 incident in Washington, D.C. The video clip showed Sandmann and Nathan Phillips, a Native American who was demonstrating that day, facing each other in a crowd on the National Mall.
Sandmann and his then-classmates from the Roman Catholic high school in Park Hills were in Washington for the March for Life.
Sandmann’s attorney, Todd McMurtry, declined to comment on Sandmann's decision to terminate Wood.
In an email, Wood told The Enquirer: "I love Nicholas Sandmann, and I wish him the very best going forward."
The split comes several weeks after Sandmann, in social media posts, challenged Wood's statements about now-former Vice President Mike Pence.
On Jan. 1, Wood posted on Twitter about Pence being arrested and jailed on charges of treason. Wood said, in part: “He will face execution by firing squad. He is a coward & will sing like a bird & confess ALL.”
The same day, Sandmann mentioned Wood’s tweet and commented, “I’m sorry but what the hell.”
Sandmann later tweeted: “Truthfully, this is a dumb tweet.”
Twitter eventually suspended Wood’s account.
Then in a Twitter post Sunday, Sandmann highlighted a lengthy statement Wood made on the app Telegram. Wood talked about the backlash he’d faced for his comments about Pence.
Wood also seemed to predict his firing: “No client had abandoned me but I expect Nicholas Sandmann may do so.” Wood said Sandmann had worked on U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell’s re-election campaign and could “be feeling the pressure from members of” the campaign.
Then in the same post, Wood appeared to refer to a conspiracy theory, saying he would continue to fight “for the hundreds of thousands of little children who are being abused, molested and sacrificed for the demonic pleasures of very evil people in the world – including leaders in our government."
Wood did not respond to questions about that statement. In the email, he told The Enquirer he is not a supporter of QAnon, the baseless conspiracy theory involving a satanic child sex trafficking ring run by political leaders and others.
Wood also said his comments about Pence were "rhetorical hyperbole" protected by the First Amendment.
The pending lawsuits are against NBC, ABC News, CBS News, the New York Times, Rolling Stone and Gannett. The Enquirer is owned by Gannett. The Washington Post and CNN settled with Sandmann last year.
Wood, who is based in Atlanta, was involved in efforts around the country on behalf of former President Donald Trump to challenge the election results.
A Delaware judge this month said Wood could not appear in his court, citing Wood's efforts to overturn the presidential election. According to the Delaware News Journal, the judge said Wood "exhibited a toxic stew of mendacity, prevarication and surprising incompetence."
Wood's behavior was questioned In a lawsuit filed last year by three former law partners who said Wood had demonstrated “erratic” behavior and had claimed he was being directed by “God Almighty.”
Beginning in late 2019 and into early 2020, the lawsuit says, “incoherent” phone calls, text messages and emails in the middle of the night from Wood “were the norm."
Most of the communications, according to the lawsuit, professed that “God or the Almighty was commanding his actions."
Wood has previously called the lawsuit a “shakedown” to get him to pay fees.
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