“My life turned upside down that morning,” says Iraq War veteran and U.S. Army chief warrant officer Jo Ellis of being allegedly identified by right-wing influencer Matt Wallace as the pilot who crashed a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter into an American Airlines passenger plane near Washington, D.C. earlier this year.
Ellis, a transgender woman and Army National Guard chief warrant officer, has filed a federal defamation lawsuit against Wallace in Colorado, where the social media personality reportedly lives.
Ellis claims Wallace, who has over 2 million X followers, thrust her into the social media spotlight after linking her to the Jan. 29 incident involving Black Hawk and American Airlines Flight 5342.
According to Ellis, things became so bad that she had to create a “proof of life” video to demonstrate that she was not involved.
“The original lie fabricated by Defendant was posted less than 24 hours after the mid-air collision, which Defendant was closely ‘reporting’ on his [social media] profiles,” according to Ellis’s complaint.
“Defendant claimed his ‘brother’ @JackWallace888 learned that the helicopter pilot was a transgender, and he included a picture of Plaintiff on his X post,” according to the complaint! “Once Defendant’s clickbait went viral on social media, Defendant deleted his initial post and published additional falsehoods about Plaintiff.”
Ellis and her lawyer, Meg Phelan, spoke with Military.com about why they decided to sue Wallace and what they intended to do with the damages if they won in court.
“Matt took away from the tragedy by making it about me that weekend, and so he needs to be held accountable,” Ellis said, noting that proceeds from the case would be distributed to victim family members. “The families of the crash victims don’t deserve this,” she told Military.com.
Ellis described how it feels to be so heavily scrutinized: “As someone who has been to Iraq and been shot at, it’s a little different when the entire world is looking at you through a magnifying glass.
It’s simply overwhelming. [But] I will continue to show up and serve my country because I love my country and my state, and that is ultimately what I want to do.”
The American Airlines flight and Black Hawk helicopter collided on January 29 while flying over the Potomac River near Washington, D.C.
All 67 people on board the two aircraft died.
“In the wake of this horrible tragedy, Defendant decided to exploit this devastation for clicks and money,” according to Ellis’s complaint. “Defendant is a popular commentator on x.com (” X “) with over 2.3 million followers, so all he needed was a villain.”
Ellis describes Wallace as a “notorious transphobe” who allegedly knew that a “anti-transgender narrative would draw significant attention,” according to her complaint.
“Once he had Plaintiff in his sights, Defendant concocted a destructive and irresponsible defamation campaign against Plaintiff perpetrated on social media,” according to the paperwork.
“Defendant used his prominent X platform to monetize a false narrative that Plaintiff was not only one of the Army pilots involved in the mid-air collision, but also that she engaged in ‘another trans terror attack’ and intentionally caused the mid-air collision due to her ‘depression’ and ‘Gender Dysphoria.'”
Ellis told Military.com that she has been using her Army resiliency training as a “effective” way to deal with the threats and nasty messages she has received in response to Wallace’s posts.
“Loose fingers on keyboards is having a real impact to many people’s lives, and I don’t know what the answer is, so the only answer I have is filing a lawsuit for defamation,” Ellis mentioned.
Her lawyer, Phelan, added: “We will fight this as hard as we can in court. Our plan is simply to fight and use the law, which we believe is on our side.
