Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt viled a defamation lawsuit Friday against Sundas ‘Sunny’ Naqvi, who claimed to have been detained by ICE at O’Hare International Airport and held in the Dodge County Jail.
Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt filed a defamation lawsuit Friday against Sundas “Sunny” Naqvi and Cook County, Ill. Commissioner Kevin Morrison, accusing them of peddling false claims that damaged his reputation and fueled a manufactured national controversy over an alleged illegal ICE detention.
The suit alleges Naqvi and Morrison spread lies about Naqvi being detained for more than 30 hours by federal immigration authorities at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on March 5, then transferred to an ICE facility in Broadview, Ill., and finally to the Dodge County Jail along with five other people, two of whom were U.S. citizens.
Security video, however, showed Naqvi entering secondary inspection at O’Hare at 10:46 a.m. and leaving for the public area just 56 minutes later. She checked into a Hampton Inn in Rosemont, Ill., that day and arranged her own transportation to Wisconsin the following night, appearing at a Slinger gas station before being dropped at a hotel in Beaver Dam.
Sheriff Schmidt has repeatedly stated Naqvi was never booked, detained or released from his jail, and logs confirm no female federal detainees were admitted or released during the alleged timeframe.
Morrison blasted the Dodge County Sheriff’s Office at a news conference in March for what he called a “cover-up,” claiming authorities “illegally detained American citizens without due process” to gin up outrage and media attention.
The Department of Homeland Security backed Schmidt, posting surveillance evidence that directly contradicted Naqvi’s timeline.
Neither Naqvi nor Morrison immediately provided comment on the lawsuit against them.
