New emails from law enforcement officials may undercut the New York Post’s defense in its Boston Marathon bombing defamation case, according to Mass. Lawyers Weekly. The emails, revealed in a Suffolk Superior Court filing, contradict the Post’s contention that messages shared by law enforcement pointed to Salaheddin Barhoum and Yassine Zaim as suspects in the immediate aftermath of the bombing.

Mass. Lawyers Weekly quoted from the filing:

“The ‘bogus intel’ invoked by defendants was, as shown by the emails, passed around a frenzied digital rumor mill by total bystanders to the investigation, so unconnected to it and so unaware of its course that one recipient was moved to call it a ‘circular reporting tornado that is sweeping the nation,’’’ the plaintiffs’ Boston lawyers, Max D. Stern and C. William Barrett III, argue in a recent filing. “In a stunning omission, defendants leave out entirely the responsive email — found in the same chain and in the same production — which contains the decisive fact that well before the article went to press, the actual investigating entities had already made clear that plaintiffs were ‘not of interest’’’ as per the national Joint Terrorism Task Force.

The filing later states that the Post ignored FBI advice to “verify information through appropriate official sources before reporting.’’

Click here for the full Mass. Lawyers Weekly story.