A Wisconsin sheriff announced a defamation lawsuit Friday against a Cook County politician and a Skokie woman who recently claimed that federal immigration officials detained her at three locations for nearly 48 hours, including a jail in Dodge County, Wisconsin.
Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt is suing in his individual capacity, alleging damage to his reputation as a result of Summer Sundas “Sunny” Naqvi’s harrowing story that he sought to debunk during a one-hour news conference in the afternoon. He alleged that Naqvi, who was born in Evanston, and Cook County Commissioner Kevin Morrison, a family friend of hers, spread “unverified, uncorroborated and misleading” claims, but said he could not yet identify any Wisconsin laws they broke.
“At no point was Sundas Naqvi in the custody of the Dodge County Sheriff’s Office,” Schmidt said. “This is a serious accusation, and when it is not true, it does real damage. It damages the trust between law enforcement and the community. It unfairly puts a target on the backs of officers.”
Neither Naqvi or her sister Sarah Afzal immediately responded to requests for comment on Friday. It was not clear if Naqvi had an attorney. An attorney from a firm representing her on a separate case declined to comment and said he is not representing her in the defamation case.
In a text message to the Tribune, Morrison said, “It is my understanding that a lawsuit has been filed, I haven not seen it. And if a suit has in fact been filed, I cannot comment on pending litigation.”
At the news conference in Juneau, Wisconsin, the sheriff laid out a timeline and played a slideshow of surveillance footage, hotel records and text message screenshots that he said proves Naqvi was never held at the Dodge County jail.
Naqvi’s story of disembarking from a flight at O’Hare International Airport on March 5 and allegedly being held by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security at the airport for 30 hours — despite being a U.S. citizen — made international headlines. Her alleged ordeal, according to Morrison and Afzal, included being moved to a notorious immigration processing center in west suburban Broadview and then the Dodge County detention center, before she was released March 7 and hitchhiked to a nearby Holiday Inn.
But Schmidt said Friday his office had no record of Naqvi getting booked into the facility. His lawsuit alleges Naqvi and Morrison’s claims about her alleged detention in the Dodge County jail “were and are false.” His lawsuit seeks damages of more than $1 million against each defendant.
Schmidt produced records from a Rosemont Hampton Inn & Suites that he said show Naqvi checking in about 1:17 p.m. on March 5, plus text messages between an unnamed witness and Naqvi the next day discussing ordering food and using the witness’ credit card to pay a “spa lady.”
“There is no spa at Broadview in Chicago, Illinois,” Schmidt said, referring to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center. “There is no spa lady in our jail here in Dodge County.”
Schmidt alleged at the news conference that Naqvi asked the witness to drive her to Wisconsin under the pretense of helping her sister, who she said was having car trouble. The sheriff played security footage of what he said was Naqvi taking selfies in the lobby of the Beaver Dam Holiday Inn.
Schmidt alleges in his lawsuit that, as a Republican running for reelection this year, Naqvi and Morrison caused “reputational harm and damages.” During the news conference, Schmidt also took shots at Illinois State Police, Cook County prosecutors and “blue state” prosecutorial policies but said he has not directly contacted the Cook County state’s attorney’s office in his investigation.
The lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court in Wisconsin, also lists 10 unnamed “John Does” as defendants. The lawsuit describes those defendants as people who live outside of Wisconsin and whose identities are not known but who “participated in the publication or republication of defamatory statements, and whose true names will be substituted when discovered.”
The sheriff said the witness who provided many of the text messages that anchored Schmidt’s presentation had gotten in touch with his office and had been dating Naqvi for about three years. That witness was the one who paid for her apparent trip to Turkey, Schmidt added.
Schmidt said the witness spent his entire tax return — about $12,000 — on Naqvi’s trip to Turkey, plus about $3,000 more for what he described as a medical procedure while she was overseas. He estimated that overall, Naqvi had spent about $25,000 of the witness’s money over the “few weeks” around the alleged detention.
Typically, Schmidt said, Naqvi and the witness discussed charges she was putting on his credit card, but he did not authorize a $1,000 charge she made on the card the Monday after she returned to the United States. That charge was made out to a law firm, Schmidt said.
Schmidt said the witness told him in an interview that Naqvi had asked him to “pose for the media” as one of the co-workers who had allegedly flown into O’Hare from Turkey with her and been detained. The witness refused to do so, Schmidt said.
Afzal and Morrison had said Naqvi was returning from a work trip with co-workers, all of whom are of South Asian descent and all of whom were detained along with her. They have declined repeated requests from the Tribune to speak with them.
The Tribune also reviewed screenshots from Afzal that she said show Naqvi’s live location pinging at O’Hare, Broadview and in Dodge County, Wisconsin, but the sisters did not oblige requests to see iPhone metadata to confirm the photos were not doctored.
A spokesperson for SAP, the company listed on Naqvi’s LinkedIn at the time, also denied that she had ever been employed there — which Schmidt on Friday nodded to as “all part of the hoax,” along with the phone locations.
“I’m here to tell you that in the world of AI, that in the world of technology that we live in, things like this can be spoofed very easy,” Schmidt said. “The evidence strongly suggests these location images were manipulated and are unreliable.”
The Dodge County sheriff’s office is still pursuing a criminal investigation, Schmidt said, even though he had no charges to announce Friday. He has also spoken to FBI investigators about the matter but “had not heard anything final,” adding that he understood DHS had asked the FBI to get involved in the investigation.
Schmidt’s office was one of three agencies that disputed or cast doubt on Naqvi’s story. At Morrison’s behest, Cook County sheriff’s deputies had searched the ICE building in Broadview when Naqvi’s supporters said she was there but couldn’t find her or her luggage inside. And DHS released a statement calling her story “blatantly false,” saying Naqvi had arrived at O’Hare around 10:20 a.m. March 5 and left about an hour and a half later.
“(U.S. Customs and Border Protection) did NOT transfer any individuals to Broadview or perform any phone detentions from her flight on Thursday, March 5th,” an agency spokesperson told the Tribune in a written statement Thursday night.
During his news conference, Schmidt said Naqvi has had “a history of lying to law enforcement, of lying to other officials, about pretty serious stuff,” most notably a now-dismissed 2019 false reporting case in which she alleged that her ex-boyfriend had sexually assaulted her at knifepoint.
A Skokie police report associated with that case obtained in a Freedom of Information request shows that the ex-boyfriend, whose name wasn’t publicly released, believed he was meeting up with a woman named “Leila” who he had met on Tinder shortly after he and Naqvi broke up. But Skokie detectives identified several inconsistencies between the timing of the ex’s movements on the night of the alleged assault and Naqvi’s original report.
Detectives later tracked “Leila’s” Tinder account to an IP address registered to Naqvi’s mother and found that the photos on the account belonged to a third woman who was friends with Naqvi on Facebook.
Cook County records show that the case was dropped as part of a deferred prosecution agreement after Naqvi pleaded guilty to the charges and served two years probation. Cook County court records show that Naqvi filed a petition to have the case expunged March 23.
Naqvi’s supporters, including the former congressional candidate Morrison, have stuck with her — pointing out that DHS officials have repeatedly peddled false information about its actions throughout President Donald Trump’s second administration — but have also increasingly retreated from reporters’ questions.
Now a lame-duck commissioner, Morrison will conclude his term on the Cook County Board in December after opting out of a reelection bid to run for the 8th U.S. Congressional District. He ultimately placed fifth in the March 17 Democratic primary, which was days away at the time he alerted the public to Naqvi’s story.
Morrison shared a series of videos and screenshots on his campaign page sounding the alarm on Naqvi’s alleged detention that Friday. His role was a key undercurrent in Schmidt’s Friday presentation, as his posts had sparked immediate backlash and helped drum up a hastily organized protest that evening outside the immigration processing facility in Broadview.
After Naqvi apparently came home, Morrison and other politicians held another news conference that Sunday at Broadview, while Democratic leaders including U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin soon issued public condemnations of the alleged treatment of a U.S. citizen.
“I think im at an ice detention center,” Naqvi wrote in one apparent text message that Morrison posted online Friday evening.
One of Morrison’s posts would later be used by Schmidt as he sought to poke holes in Naqvi’s story. The sheriff flashed a photo from Morrison’s social media of him with Naqvi and her family, one where Schmidt alleges Naqvi is wearing the same outfit captured in security footage of her and the witness in Wisconsin that morning.
“This last one is a photo of Kevin Morrison for Congress. He’s there with some of the family members and Naqvi,” Schmidt said. “Notice and pay attention to that clothing: ‘Grateful that she’s been returned to her family.’ None of this is true. Let’s move on, and let’s uncover some of the facts.”
