Expert witnesses back up security consultant’s claims in CNN defamation case
By: Alex Pickett
PANAMA CITY, Fla. (CN) — At the end of the first week of trial, attorneys for security consultant Zachary Young called upon a retired major general, accountant and clinical psychologist to bolster his contention that a CNN story implicating him in “black market” evacuations from Afghanistan damaged his reputation, ruined his career and spiraled him into depression.
Young — a U.S. Navy veteran who had previously worked for military contractors Blackwater and Dyncorp International — is suing CNN over a segment aired on Nov. 11, 2021, that included interviews with Afghans claiming some private contractors were charging up to $14,000 for “black market” evacuations.
Young was the only private contractor named in the story, prompting his lawsuit accusing the network of ruining his reputation and business, Nemex Enterprises.
Young, 49, has maintained he never accepted money from individual Afghans and instead relied on sponsorships from corporations and nongovernmental organizations to help rescue those fleeing the war-torn country. Prior to the trial, 14th Judicial Circuit Court Judge William Henry ruled that there is no evidence that Young did anything illegal.
Young’s for-profit evacuations were not all that different than the work of some nonprofits during that chaotic time in the fall of 2021 as the Taliban retook the country, retired Major General James V. Young Jr. testified on Friday.
“This whole concept of if you charge or not charge, I never looked at it like that,” said the major general, who is not related to the plaintiff. James V. Young Jr. started a nonprofit with other veterans that evacuated Afghans. “We charged our donors. We couldn’t have done what we did for free.”
That nonprofit, Allied Airlift 21, focused on Afghans who helped U.S. armed forces — top targets of the Taliban — and U.S. citizens and green card holders of Afghan origin.
In August 2021, after a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport, the major general coordinated with Afghans on the ground to gather those at-risk from the Taliban by loading them on buses and heading to Mazar-i-Sharif, a city in the northern part of the country and the site of the only other airport that could hold a commercial airliner.
The retired 2-star major general called the operation “Baby Bus,” named after a pregnant Afghan woman helping him coordinate evacuations on the ground. He described how they paid those on the ground — bus drivers and vendors — and the use of encrypted messaging applications like WhatsApp and Signal, a series of passwords for bus drivers and passengers and a series of safehouses — many of the same techniques used by the plaintiff in his for-profit model.
After three weeks of shifting about safehouses, 380 Afghans boarded a plane and safely escaped. The entire operation cost about $1 million, James V. Young Jr. said.
Attorney Kyle Roche asked the major general if he thought the fees charged by Young, the security contractor, were reasonable.
“I do,” he said. “I’m not sure how you come to a conclusion that they are unreasonable.”
“I would submit to you that if you are a 16-year-old Afghan girl and if you don’t get out of Afghanistan you’ll be married off to a 60-year-old Taliban leader. I don’t know the number,” James V. Young Jr. said. “What’s that worth?”
During cross-examination, CNN attorney David Axelrod, who shares a name with the former White House official, jumped on this hypothetical scenario by first asking if the general would hire Young to save that same 16-year-old girl.
“I would personally hire him,” he said, but not as a board member of his nonprofit.
“I would see someone like him as way too risky for our operation to be associated with,” the general said.
“So you would let her die or something worse happen to her?” Axelrod said.
“We’d find other methods,” the major general replied.
“You’d let her die, huh?” the attorney asked.
“We were not able to get everyone we wanted to out of Afghanistan, so I think I answered your question,” James V. Young Jr. said.
At one point, Axelrod brought up the $1 million cost for his nonprofit to evacuate 380 Afghans and gave the major general his phone to calculate the cost per person for the project.
“2,631.58,” Young read from the calculator.
In contrast, the plaintiff charged $17,000 per extraction.
The retired general, who focused primarily on intelligence during his 36 years in the U.S. Army, also stressed how important reputation is in his line of work.
“It’s pretty much everything,” James V. Young Jr. said. “You aren’t going to find jobs like this on Monster.com.”
In an attempt to convince the jury of the lost income incurred by the plaintiff, and a hint to damages sought by the lawsuit, Zachary Young’s attorneys hired Richard Bolko, a certified public accountant from South Florida. In Bolko’s analysis, if he extrapolates until retirement, Young’s lost income is $21.3 million.
But Axelrod questioned Bolko’s methodology of using W-2 income from the plaintiff’s previous contracting job to extrapolate revenue of his own business, which at times lost money in the years prior to 2021, tax returns submitted to the court show. In addition, Axelrod pointed out, Young made $280,000 in 2021 before the CNN story, yet the CPA calculates a figure 75 times higher, until his retirement.
“You assume he makes zero dollars for the rest of his life?” CNN’s attorney said. “You would assume Mr. Young could get a job doing something, right?
“I’m assuming,” Bolko said, adding “there is a lot of risk” in his calculation.
Dr. John Vincent, a clinical psychologist out of Texas, also testified on Friday. Vincent evaluated the plaintiff months after the CNN story aired and found he suffered from major depression disorder, persistent depression disorder and trauma stressor disorder.
Vincent said his evaluation showed that after the CNN broadcast, Young “deteriorated rapidly.”
Vincent, who performed the evaluation remotely, because Young was living in Vienna, Austria, said his trauma stressor disorder “can be just as severe as PTSD.”
Young described a sense of worthlessness, sleep disturbance, appetite problems, loss of libido, and panic attacks, Vincent said.
During cross-examination, Axelrod read notes from Zachary Young’s psychiatrist and psychologist in Austria, attempting to impugn Vincent’s testimony.
“When I asked him what brought him here, the patient replied he had been in Afghanistan,” Axelrod read from that doctor’s report.
A set of notes from another doctor pointed to stress from “high-risk deployments in Afghanistan,” even though the plaintiff testified earlier in the week that he never set foot in Afghanistan.
“Two different sets of doctors had reported Mr. Young was in Afghanistan at the time of the publications,” Axelrod said. “This didn’t raise a flag?”
“No, it didn’t,” Vincent answered, adding there could have been confusion caused by translation.
The trial continues next week with CNN national security correspondent Alex Marquardt, who reported the story at issue, taking the stand.
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