CLEVELAND, OH — Today, the law firm of Zukerman, Lear, Murray & Brown Co., L.P.A., counsel for Congressman Max L. Miller (OH-7), filed an Answer, Counterclaim, and Third-Party Complaint in the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas (Case No. CV-26-133225) in response to a defamation lawsuit filed against Rep. Miller by Dr. Feras Hamdan.
Hamdan, who on February 17, 2026 pleaded guilty to Disorderly Conduct, Obstructing Official Business, and Willful or Wanton Disregard of Safety on Highways as a result of his June 2025 attack on Rep. Miller, brazenly sued the Congressman the same day he was sentenced, claiming Miller defamed him by accurately describing the incident.
Today’s filing tells the full story.
The Attack. On June 19, 2025, Hamdan intentionally targeted Rep. Miller on Interstate 90, recklessly forcing his vehicle into Miller’s lane and causing the Congressman to swerve and nearly crash. Evidence recovered from a forensic extraction of Hamdan’s own cell phone shows the attack was premeditated as Hamdan had spent years monitoring Rep. Miller, waiting for the opportunity to confront him. During the assault, Hamdan recorded himself shouting antisemitic slurs at the Congressman. Immediately after, he sent a battery of offensive and hate-based texts about Rep. Miller to his friends and associates and boasted that he “Got into road rage this am haha… Intentional.”
The Counterclaims. Rep. Miller’s counterclaims against Hamdan include Assault, Ethnic Intimidation, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, Civil Liability for Criminal Acts, and Spoliation of Evidence, supported in large part by Hamdan’s own recorded statements and his criminal conviction.
The Conspiracy. The filing also asserts civil conspiracy and spoliation claims against Hamdan’s attorney Issa Elkhatib, Firas Almukdad and his companies TeslaMend LLC, TeslaMend Collision & Service LLC, and TeslaMend Collision & Glass LLC, as well as “EZ” Assad and Straightline Collision Center, LLC. The filing alleges that these parties collaborated to manufacture a fraudulent Tesla vehicle data “expert report” submitted to prosecutors. The report’s author later gave materially inconsistent accounts to law enforcement under subpoena, admitted he excluded key data without explanation, and acknowledged that defense counsel assisted in drafting it. That report was a primary basis for the State’s decision to reduce felony charges against Hamdan to misdemeanors—a reduction that Hamdan wasted no time exploiting by filing this lawsuit the very day he was sentenced.
Regarding this filing, Larry W. Zukerman, Esq., Managing Partner of Zukerman, Lear, Murray & Brown Co., L.P.A., states: “Dr. Hamdan pleaded guilty to crimes arising from a premeditated, antisemitic attack on a sitting United States Congressman. His own recorded words, recovered from his own cell phone, tell the story in devastating detail. Filing a defamation lawsuit against the victim of your own criminal conduct is not just legally meritless; it is an affront to the justice system. We intend to hold Dr. Hamdan, and everyone who helped him try to escape accountability, fully responsible.”
Rep. Miller is represented by Larry W. Zukerman, Esq., S. Michael Lear, Esq., and Adam M. Brown, Esq. of Zukerman, Lear, Murray & Brown Co., L.P.A.
A complete copy of the Answer, Counterclaim, and Third-Party Complaint can be found here.
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