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Motion To Dismiss The Lawsuit
Date: August 23, 2013

The Federal Bureau of Investigation asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed over its labeling the fans of the band the Insane Clown Posse as gang members.

The FBI filed a motion for summary disposition on Friday, Aug. 23, 2013, after the Insane Clown Posse and its Bloomfield Hills-based law firm, Hertz Schram, filed a lawsuit in September 2012 in Flint U.S. District Court demanding the FBI turn over information that led the agency to list the band's fans -- known as Juggalos -- as a gang.

The FBI argued in its motion to dismiss, which was filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office, that the bureau turned over all pertinent records in two separate releases.

FBI spokesperson Simon Shaykhet declined to comment on the motion.

The FBI claimed that it reviewed 63 pages of records and released 62 of them on Dec. 6, 2012, and reviewed 93 more pages of records before releasing 40 pages of them on Jan. 30, 2013.

The documents released by the FBI contained numerous media reports of Juggalo-related violence and heavily redacted communications between the FBI and local law enforcement authorities.

Intra-agency communications, names of law enforcement personnel and documents that included potentially confidential law enforcement information were either redacted or not included in the releases, according to court records.

A trial in the case was not expected to begin until May 2014. No date is scheduled for a hearing on the FBI's summary judgment motion.

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