The phone call came on a Thursday afternoon from my lawyer Steven Perles. He asked, “What are you guys doing next Wednesday?”
I told him it was the Fast of Esther. “Why?” I asked.
“Judge Lamberth wants us in his courtroom that morning at 9:30. He’s about to render a decision in the case.”
“The case” was our ground-breaking lawsuit against the Islamic Republic of Iran. It began in 1997 two years after the murder of my daughter Alisa in an Iranian-sponsored terror attack while she was studying in Israel.
We had learned from the U.S. State Department that the Iranian government was giving several million dollars a year to terrorist groups to kill Jews. Using the provisions of a 1996 law, I commenced the lawsuit – the first of its kind – against the Iranian government for its role in the attack.
The trial took place before Judge Royce C. Lamberth at the Federal Courthouse in Washington, D.C. over two long days beginning on March 2, 1998. I testified, as did expert witnesses on Iran’s funding of Islamic Jihad. At the end of the second day, we were exhausted – emotionally and physically. And when we arrived home after our five-hour drive from Washington, D.C. to West Orange, we all collapsed onto our beds.
Ours was what the courts call a “case of first impression.” An American citizen had never before attempted to hold a foreign country responsible for the murder of his child. Although we believed we would win our case, we had no idea if Judge Lamberth would award damages or give us any other type of relief.
I told Perles we’d see him in Washington next week. When we woke that Wednesday morning, the fast had not yet begun, so we quickly gobbled some toast and coffee before leaving. We soon found ourselves – my wife Rosalyn and me, and our children Gail, Francine, Ilana and Etan – boarding the 4:40 a.m. Amtrak Metroliner in Newark’s Penn Station for the trip to Washington, D.C.’s Union Station.
Perles and co-counsel Thomas Fay met us at Union Station and arranged a van for us to travel to the courthouse. When we arrived in the courtroom, my attorneys motioned to me that I should sit with them at the counsel table. A few minutes after 9:30 a.m., the door to the left of the judge’s bench opened and Judge Lamberth entered and mounted the bench. Wishing everybody a “good morning,” he said he was ready to render a decision. I held my breath.
He began, “The court has examined the evidence and is satisfied that the plaintiff has established that the death of the decedent Alisa Michelle Flatow was caused by the actions of the Islamic Republic of Iran in sponsoring the suicide bombing in Israel on April 9th, 1995.”
After reviewing the facts of the case and the law behind his reasoning, Judge Lamberth ordered a judgment to be entered in the amount of $249 million, which included $225 million in punitive damages. There were gasps from the now-crowded courtroom. I slammed the table and looked up at the ceiling and said, “Alisa, we did it.”
We had broken new ground – not only for my daughter, but for hundreds of other families who, following in our footsteps, will now be able to hold the Iranians accountable for the murder and injury of their loved ones. It’s called “lawfare.”
Twenty-two years later, billions of dollars have been awarded to Iran’s victims. Some of us were fortunate to have collected on our claims. (Payment came through the U.S. Treasury, which was supposed to be reimbursed from seized Iranian funds. Those funds, though, were returned to Iran in 2016 by President Obama.) For others, the battle is ongoing.
At the end of the day, we boarded a train back to Newark and went straight to our shul for Maariv and megillah reading. I had heard the megillah many times before, but never did its words and meaning resonate as clearly as they did that night. I had battled the modern-day Haman, and beat him in the courtroom.
No Purim since then has been as sweet.