By Harut Sassounian
The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) announced last week that on April 14, 2025, a U.S. District Court dismissed a $500 million lawsuit filed by Aynur Baghirzade, an Azeri lawyer based in Laguna Beach, CA, against the ANCA and 29 others.
Baghirzade’s 198-page lawsuit “leveled unfounded accusations,” the ANCA stated. “The court struck the plaintiff’s [Baghirzade’s] Third Amended Complaint, dismissing this action, denying remaining motions as moot, and declaring the case closed.” She later tweeted that she intends to appeal the ruling.
The ANCA noted that for months, Baghirzade had engaged in a “lengthy series of incendiary social media posts,” describing Armenia as “a carcinoma” that “shall be deleted from South Caucasus.” In multiple posts on X, she referred to herself as a “U.S. Immigration and Business attorney…. If the truth scares you I will terrify you….” She also wrote: “You fight a terrorist organization and find out that it has its own judges, police, state officials and even congressmen as members.” She added: “Imagine your power that people go and bribe judges to harm you….” She even ridiculed the Armenian Genocide, claiming Armenians shed “crocodile tears about the events back in 1915.”
In addition to her inflammatory rhetoric, Baghirzade posted numerous tweets raising concerns about her professionalism and mental state. For example, she criticized a policeman who issued her a ticket for traffic violation: “Just got a letter from police ‘fining’ me for illegal stop — another candidate to be a defendant.” She also wrote, “if police watches your steps and then relays this information to the terrorists — this is called a state backed terrorism.” In a direct attack on Federal Judge Robert Huie who dismissed her case, Baghirzade accused him of being “corrupt,” threatening to sue him!
Interestingly, when Baghirzade filed her case on June 21, 2024, she failed to pay the required $350 civil filing fee, claiming “in forma pauperis” — meaning she was too poor to pay the fee. The Judge rejected her request. She submitted a new request on July 2, 2024, which was also denied. The Court noted that her annual income of $50,952 exceeded the federal poverty threshold by 325%. The Judge imposed a $55 administrative fee on top of the initial $350.
Bagherzade sued the following 30 individuals and entities: “Alphabet Inc.; Aram Hamparian; Armen Sahakyan; Armenian National Committee of America; Armenian National Committee of America, Western Region; Attorney Search Network; Coco Su; Estrella Sanchez; Google, Inc.; Jake Baloian; Jeremy Stoppelman; Legal Match; Martindale-Nolo; Los Angeles County Bar Association; Orange County Bar Association; Seth Chavez; Teresa Vuki; Trudy Levindofske; Yelp, Inc.; YouTube; Sundar Pichai; Zartonk Media; Zaven Kouroghlian; Van Megerdichian; Ani Tchaglasian; Legalshield; Parker-Stanbury, LLP; Greystar California, Inc.; Kia America, Inc.; and ARF Eastern USA, Inc.
On Feb. 27, 2025, the Federal Court “dismissed Baghirzade’s Second Amended Complaint [which was 78-pages-long] pursuant to Defendants’ motion to dismiss.” The Court determined that her claims failed to meet the legal standard for federal claims and granted Plaintiff “leave to amend Claims One through Five to address the deficiencies described in this order.” The Court said that her lawsuit “is a failure to adequately plead a single cognizable federal claim against any one of the defendants she has sued.” The Judge further stated: “Plaintiff’s filings to date have consistently failed to comply with the applicable rules, but the Court has accepted them nonetheless — even without a request from Plaintiff to excuse the non-compliance. Failure to follow applicable rules or orders in the future may result in filings being stricken.”
On April 10, 2025, Baghirzage filed her Third Amended Complaint which was 198 pages long. In her latest filing, she had added as a new defendant, the “ARF Eastern USA, Inc., mentioning it 100 times,” even though she was told by the Judge that she could not add any new defendants. She alleged that the ARF had been “plotting for centuries to annex two regions of Azerbaijan” — a baseless claim, given that neither the ARF nor Azerbaijan had existed for ‘centuries.’ The Court stated that Baghirzade had not complied with its instructions. “None of her claims has survived dismissal.”
The Court further accused Baghirzade of suing “over 30 defendants, has amended her complaint more than once, and has failed to state a single claim against a single defendant that is not subject to dismissal. Plaintiff accuses Defendants of extensive criminal conduct, and her pleadings frequently adopt a tone of animus, hostility, suspicion, or sarcasm in referring to Defendants.” Her complaint “repeats and seeks to vindicate her past statements that another ethnic group’s home country is a ‘carcinoma’ and that ‘we have to delete [that ethnic group’s] project as soon as possible.’” Her complaint also “fancifully alleged that all Defendants — most of whom appear completely unrelated to each other, and some of which are public companies — conspired together for the single-minded purpose of harming her.”
The Judge further stated that Baghirzade’s third complaint, “over two-and-a-half times as long, appears to contain similar fanciful allegations while expanding the alleged conspiracy ever wider.” Like her second complaint, the third complaint “continues to ascribe events in her life — such as discovering flies in her apartment on one occasion, finding a cockroach in her hotel room, or having her car towed after parking in someone else’s spot in her building — to the malevolent conspiracy of Defendants without any factual basis for this ascription plausibly alleged.” Her third complaint “now sweeps even more broadly, accusing the Defendants of (among other things) international terrorism as well as engaging the U.S. Congress to persecute her. Plaintiff also adds numerous ‘non-party co-conspirators,’ including seven California state court judges or justices; the implication is that persons who have displeased Plaintiff are thereby part of a criminal conspiracy against her. In other words, Defendants are seemingly required to respond to expanding pleadings that diverge even further from plausibility. This factor weighs in favor of dismissal.”
Federal Judge Robert Huie had no choice but to dismiss Baghirzade’s lawsuit, stating: “Anything short of dismissal in these circumstances would disserve the interests of justice.”
