A Massachusetts teenager and a friend filed a defamation lawsuit against the New York Post in Boston, accusing the tabloid of falsely portraying them as suspects in the deadly Marathon bombings by plastering their photograph on the front page under the headline, “Bag Men,” the Boston Globe reports. The lawsuit said the photographs and articles published three days after the bombings made it appear that FBI agents were pursuing Salaheddin Barhoum and Yassine Zaimi, avid runners watching the Marathon.
That evening, authorities issued photographs of the suspected bombers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Attorneys for Barhoum, a 16-year-old Revere High School student, and Zaimi, 24, a college student, accused the New York Post of libel, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and invasion of privacy. They seek unspecified monetary damages.