Seal Team 6 Author Sues Fort Wayne Law Firm Over "No Easy Day" Advice

The Seal Team 6 member who participated in the alleged capture and killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, and who later penned a book "No Easy Day" under the pen name, Mark Owen, is suing a Fort Wayne attorney and his former law firm for legal advice he received from the firm which he blames for action later taken against him by the Department of Defense for unauthorized disclosures he made in the book. Matt Bissonnette claims his reputation has been tarnished, he lost his security clearance and has forfeited most of the income his book earned due to alleged malpractice committed by Kevin Podlaski and his former law firm, Carson Boxberger, LLC. Bissonnette claims losses of at least $8 million.

Bissonnette did not allow the Department of Defense and other security agencies to review his book prior to publication he says based on advice he received from the Fort Wayne law firm. His suit claims the law firm reviewed the book in advance and assured him all classified and sensitive information had been removed from it prior to publication. Bissonnette says his New York book publisher referred him to Podlaski for legal advice. Bissonnette reached a settlement agreement with the Defense Department under which the government gets most of the book's revenues, which he says has already exceeded $4.5 million. Bissonnette's lawsuit also claims he lost potential movies rights for the book as well.

Bissonnette says he decided to write the book because others were writing inaccuracies about the raid that supposedly led to the capture and killing of bin Laden. Others have doubted the existence of bin Laden during the 2011 raid by the Seal Team 6, noting many intelligence reports that claimed he died in 2001 not long after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Some ague that the man killed during the 2011 raid was one of several bin Laden doubles used by the CIA, which actually created, funded and armed bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist organization with the help of the Saudi government. Bin Laden was known as Tim Osman when he worked for the CIA. Some of the Seal Team 6 members later died when their helicopter was shot down in Afghanistan in the months following the May 2011 raid on the compound in Pakistan where bin Laden allegedly lived. Vice President Joe Biden was blamed for outing the identity of Seal Team 6 during a speech as the group of Navy Seals who carried out the raid.

Podlaski is retired from the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps. According to his firm's website, he served on several military bases, including Guantanamo Bay where he served as a special prosecutor. Podlaski's law practice primarily focuses on litigation representing individuals, businesses, insurance companies and federal, state an local governments.