Camp Lejeune Lawsuit

A veteran who works at Camp Lejeune is suing the base. As Nine on Your Side’s Laura Vesco explains it all boils down to a battle over bumper stickers.

Major Nat Fahy with Camp Lejeune says, “We’re not discriminating against him we are just discriminating against the decals he has on his car which were offensive to the Islamic religion.“

According to the lawsuit, Jess Nieto put these anti-Islamic stickers on his car because his son was killed in 2000 on the USS Cole by Islamic terrorists.

However, a Camp Lejeune base order states, owners are prohibited from displaying extremist, indecent, sexists or racists messages on their motor vehicles in any format.

Fahy says,” In Mr. Nieto’s case the Equal Employment Opportunity office received several complaints with respect to the offensive nature of his decals which apparently denigrated the religion of Islam.“

Nieto was issued two citations and after refusing to remove all of his stickers.  “He was informed that he was going to have his base decal removed and after not complying his decal was removed and his vehicle was banned from base,“ says Fahy.

Nieto attorney, Robert Muise says it’s violating his clients freedom of speech because dozens of other vehicles on base have questionable bumper stickers and nobody is requiring those stickers to be removed base officials say the reason for that is simple.

Fahy says, “Enough people have to complain about a particular decal in order for it to be found offensive.“

Offensive or not, the bottom line according to Jesse Nieto attorney is that the base bumper sticker rule is unconstitutional and needs to be changed.

Base officials tell us that Jesse Nieto has not been permanently banned from Camp Lejeune. Nieto is still going to his job on base but just in a different car.