Judge Awards $7.5 Million For Slander In ''Taliban Toyota'' Suit

The owner of Eastern Shore Toyota in Daphne, Alabama, Iranian-born Shawn Esfahani, sought $28 million in damages after employees of a competing Toyota dealership portrayed him as an Islamist militant bent on laundering money for the Taliban terrorist organization.

The problem was that Esfahani is from Iran, the Taliban operate in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Mr. Esfahani had also left Iran to avoid the Islamic extremists who had taken power there in 1980. His lawsuit said that Bob Tyler Toyota sales manager Fred Kenner had told at least one couple considering buying from Eastern Shore Toyota that Esfahani was of Middle Eastern descent and was ''helping fund the insurgents there and is also laundering money for them.'' A Bob Tyler salesman was accused of telling the same couple that Esfahani was from Iraq and calling him a "terrorist" who put soldiers including the salesman's brother in harm's way. ''(Esfahani) is funneling money back to his family and other terrorists. I have a brother over there and what you're doing is helping kill my brother,'' the salesman told the couple when he called them on the Eastern Shore sales floor, according to the suit.

A jury awarded Esfahani $2.5 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages on October 31, 2011. Esfahani said the award was irrelevant unless the case tells other business owners to stop using tactics he considers ''un-American.'' Come on guys, yelling terrorist at every person of Middle-Eastern descent is despicable.

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