The $10 million lawsuit against Uber that was believed to have been written by the Kalamazoo man charged with murdering six people while on duty for the ride-sharing app last month is a hoax, the county sheriff’s office told The Detroit Free Press.
The filing, a handwritten letter, was sent from Philadelphia rather than Michigan, where Jason Dalton is being held in Kalamazoo County Jail. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
Kalamazooo County undersheriff Pali Matyas told Reuters that the envelope in which the suit was sent to the court was not of the type that the county jail uses, nor did the postage. Furthermore, the script of the letter didn’t match examples of Dalton’s handwriting on file at the sheriff’s office. Finally, Dalton flat-out told deputies on Thursday that he didn’t write or send the letter.
“All of that translates into a hoax,” Matyas said.
Dalton is charged with shooting eight people and killing six over a five-hour span in between accepting fares as an Uber driver on Feb. 20. The handwritten lawsuit that was thought to have been authored by Dalton claimed that Uber owed him back and overtime pay and that, “They gave me no Christmas bonus, I wasn’t invited to any corporate parties, they made me work when I was sick and they didn’t let me spend time with my children.”
Efforts by TheWrap to contact the Kalamazoo County Sheriff were unsuccessful.