"The Innocence of Muslims" actress Cindy Lee Garcia (pictured) has suffered another setback in her attempt to have the anti-Muslim film's trailer pulled from YouTube.
A judge in U.S. District Court in California has shot down Garcia's request for a temporary restraining order barring the trailer — which has been blamed for a wave of violence that broke out in the Middle East last month.
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Garcia, who filed for the temporary restraining order Wednesday, is suing YouTube, its owner Google, and the "Innocence of Muslims" filmmaker, claiming that, as an actress in the film, she retains a copyright claim on her performance.
While rejecting Garcia's request, Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald explained that he chose to construe the request for a temporary restraining order as a motion for a preliminary injunction, and set a Nov. 19 hearing for that motion. The defendants have until Oct. 29 to file any opposition briefs, and Garcia has a Nov. 5 to file a reply brief.
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Garcia claims that she was duped into appearing in the film, saying that the script for the movie, which was originally titled "Desert Warriors," didn't contain any inflammatory language, and that the anti-Muslim dialog in Arabic was dubbed in afterward.
The Bakersfield, Calif.-based actress originally filed her lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court, but it was dismissed last month, after which she re-filed in federal court.
The man behind "The Innocence of Muslims," most recently identified as Mark Youssef, is currently detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles and facing probation-violation charges stemming from an earlier bank fraud conviction. Youssef is accused of violating his probation by, among other alleged infractions, using a computer without his probation officer's authorization and employing numerous aliases. Youssef denied the allegations during a hearing earlier this month. He is due back in court on Nov. 9.
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.
