ANN ARBOR, MI - Conservative commentator Debbie Schlussel is suing the city of Ann Arbor for not releasing the name of a Muslim woman who reported a false hate crime.
The lawsuit, filed Monday, Aug. 27, alleges the Ann Arbor Police Department violated the Freedom of Information Act when it refused to release the name of a Muslim woman who reported a hate crime on Nov. 11, 2016.
In the highly publicized case, the Muslim University of Michigan student claimed a white man threatened to light her on fire for wearing a hijab, citing the election of Donald Trump as motivation. Ann Arbor police later determined the incident never happened.
Schlussel claims the city is withholding the woman's identity under sharia law, according to the lawsuit.
When reached by telephone Tuesday, the cable news pundit pointed out that in a similar FOIA request, the Ann Arbor police released the name of Halley Bass, the 21-year-old University of Michigan student who also fabricated a post-election hate crime.
Bass alleged that a Trump supporter scratched her on the cheek with a pin on a downtown Ann Arbor street because of her own anti-Brexit safety pin on Nov. 15. Police determined Bass made up the incident. She is serving one year of probation after pleading guilty to one count of false report of a misdemeanor.
Schlussel alleges police released Bass's name because she's white, and withheld the other woman's name because she's Muslim.
"I think there's a double standard here," Schlussel said. "...I think there's a concerted effort by a number of municipalities, not just in Michigan, but in other places across the country, to abide by sharia, which is Islamic law, and not by American laws. It galls me when I see this happening and then I see people in the media saying there's no such thing as sharia in America. Yes, there is."
Ann Arbor City Attorney Steven Postema said his office doesn't comment on pending litigation.
"We're aware something was filed and don't have a comment at this time," he said.
Schlussel is a Michigan-based attorney and conservative political commentator who frequently appears on Fox News, among many other national media outlets, according to the lawsuit. A few months ago, she made headlines by saying an encounter with Fox News' Sean Hannity was "creepy," but didn't rise to the level of sexual harassment.
The falsely reported hate crimes in Ann Arbor piqued her interest within the last year, she said. The lawsuit claims she called Ann Arbor police several times attempting to get the names of the two women who filed the fraudulent reports, but police never called her back.
Ann Arbor police did not wish to comment for this story, deferring to the city attorney's office.
In February, Schlussel submitted a request under the Freedom of Information Act to the Ann Arbor Police Department requesting the full names, unredacted police reports, pictures and other information pertaining to both cases of falsely reported hate crimes, the suit claims.
Schlussel says she had no problem getting information about Bass.
But the department still wouldn't release the name of the Muslim woman in the other case, citing privacy and medical exemptions, according to the lawsuit.
Schlussel claims the woman isn't a victim, but someone who should have been charged with a crime.
"They don't have a right to privacy," Schlussel said about people who fabricate hate crimes.
The report she received was highly redacted, which means certain information is blacked out. Conversations the Muslim woman's attorney had with police detectives that appeared in the report were among the redacted material.
"These conversations are not entitled to protection from public release," the lawsuit says. "The public deserves to know the name of the woman who filed a false police report, fraudulently claiming that she was the victim of a hate crime and wasting public resources and many hours of police time ..."
The Ann Arbor News/MLive also obtained copies of the similarly redacted police reports earlier this year under FOIA. As a matter of routine, police don't release the name of victims in a case, or the name of a suspect until they are formally charged in court.
The Washtenaw County Prosecutor's Office chose not to authorize charges against the woman, but never elaborated on why, according to previous media reports.
Schlussel claims both the police department and prosecutor's office are "politically motivated," according to the lawsuit. The suit alleges the agencies have "two separate policies regarding hate crime hoax prosecution and release of FOIA records - one for Muslim women and one for everyone else."
"This Muslim woman, they didn't prosecute her, even though the police spent an enormous time and resources on trying to investigate this alleged hate crime she admitted didn't happen," Schlussel said. "Apparently she gets a pass because she's Muslim."
The suit seeks a court-order forcing police to release the woman's name and unredacted police report. No hearing dates have yet been set.
"She needs to face the music, and she isn't," Schlussel said.