Plaintiffs in In Re Terrorist Attacks available to tell their stories

As the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks draws near, Anderson Kill continues to pursue justice for thousands of family members who lost loved ones in the destruction wrought on that day by al Qaeda operatives and their extensive support network among state- and non-state-actors.

The Anderson Kill 9/11 litigation team led by Jerry S. Goldman is counsel to approximately 3,250 plaintiffs from approximately 650 families who lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks, including victims who were passengers on the planes, at the Pentagon, and the World Trade Center, and those who selflessly sacrificed their lives to rescue others.  Mr. Goldman’s clients include Christine O’Neill, a lead plaintiff in the consolidated multidistrict litigation, In Re Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001, 03-md-1570 (GBD)(SN).  Mrs. O’Neill is the widow of former FBI counterterrorism chief John P. O’Neill, who had been newly appointed chief of security for the World Trade Center in August 2001.  Mr. O’Neill was killed while helping others evacuate.

Mr. Goldman, a member of the Plaintiffs’ Executive Committee for Personal Injury and Death Claims in the 9/11 litigations, filed suit for Mrs. O’Neill and her family in March 2004 against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other defendants and has been a lead actor through the litigation’s twists and turns for more than 20 years.  In August 2025, the plaintiffs won a major victory when U.S. District Judge George B. Daniels denied Saudi Arabia’s motion to dismiss.  Judge Daniels reviewed the carefully prepared and extensive body of evidence presented by the plaintiffs and held that they had presented a viable case that must proceed to trial.  That decision is now on appeal at the Second Circuit.  The active litigations and recoveries for the plaintiffs continues against a host of state- and non-state-actors complicit in the 9/11 attacks, as summarized below.

At the 25-year mark, the potency of the thousands of personal tragedies triggered by the attacks has only deepened – along with memories of extraordinary heroism on 9/11/2001.  Mr. Goldman’s thousands of clients include spouses, children, parents, and siblings of high Pentagon officials; undocumented dishwashers; financiers; and firefighters and other first responders who led hundreds to safety before perishing; newlyweds and parents of newborns; and hard-working people of every background.

Many of Mr. Goldman’s clients – including the sample directly below – are willing to share their stories.  Further, Mr. Goldman is available to discuss their cases and the status of litigations against Saudi Arabia, Iran, the Taliban, Sudan, and various other defendants.

Clients include:

Survivor

• William “Will” Jimeno seeks justice for the devastating injuries he sustained on 9/11/2001.  As a new Port Authority Police Officer (and new father), Will Jimeno volunteered to help save people from the burning World Trade Center on September 11.  But when the South Tower suddenly collapsed, Will found himself trapped – buried alive in a dark pit full of rubble.  Will’s good friend Officer Dominic Pezzulo was then killed at Will’s side when the North Tower also collapsed on Will’s team.  For the next thirteen hours Will remained immobilized, along with PAPD Sgt. John McLoughlin (also an AK client) beneath the wreckage of the Towers – pinned down by a huge slab of concrete, surrounded by fire, smoke, and explosions, desperate for water and in unspeakable pain, and terribly afraid he would never be found or see his young family again.  But ultimately some former Marines found Will, and he was saved following a grueling three hour rescue operation.  Will was the third to last person rescued alive from the World Trade Center site.  He had suffered massive crush injuries.  He “flatlined” twice at the hospital.  He endured eight separate surgeries and multiple skin grafts.  Because of permanent muscle and nerve damage, he still cannot walk or stand for an extended period of time, and he still has a hole in his leg that he describes as looking like a shark bite.  Some parts of his leg remain so sensitive that a mere touch can cause him to pass out from the resulting pain.  He cannot work and struggles with PTSD to this day.  But Will has written both a children’s book and a memoir about his experiences on 9/11, and he gives lectures in order to help others also struggling with PTSD.  (Will’s ordeal and that of his Sergeant and fellow survivor John McLoughlin are portrayed in the movie World Trade Center.)

Rescuers

• James Smith seeks justice for his wife, Moira A. Smith, the only female police officer killed on 9/11.  Ms. Smith led countless injured people from the World Trade Center and was posthumously awarded the NYPD’s Medal of Honor, the department’s highest honor.  Throughout her police career, Officer Smith exhibited extreme valor and in 1991 was awarded the department’s Distinguished Duty Medal after saving dozens of lives after a subway crash.
• Kenneth Haskell, brother of Timothy Haskell and Thomas Haskell, seeks justice for his firefighter brothers who both died while helping rescue thousands of people in the towers.
• Eveyln Zelmanowitz seeks justice for Abraham Zelmanowitz, who stayed behind with his quadriplegic friend awaiting rescue.  Both died along with the firefighter who tried to evacuate them.  Mr. Zelmanowitz was honored with a posthumous award by President Bush.

Military

• Teresa Maude seeks justice for her husband, Lt. General Timothy Maude, who as the U.S. Army’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel was the highest-ranking military officer killed in the attacks and was the most senior flag officer in the U.S. Military killed by enemy fire since the Battle of Okinawa in 1945.  General Maude was in a meeting when AA Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon.
• Michelle Beilke seeks justice for her brother, Max J. Beilke, a retired Army Master Sergeant and Vietnam vet who was the last service member to leave Vietnam after the war.  Sergeant Beilke was sitting down to a meeting with General Maude when AA Flight 77 struck.  An advocate for veterans, he was deputy chief of the Pentagon’s Retirement Services Division.

Office Workers

• Richard Penny seeks justice for his father, Richard Penny, a Vice President and Chief Financial Analyst at Fred Alger who worked for the World Trade Center recycling program and was collecting paper on 9/11.  The 9/11 victim had a difficult life story.  He was valedictorian in high school and then became addicted to heroin and homeless after a robbery conviction from which he served 14 months in jail.  He was then given the opportunity to turn his life around with a program called "project renewal," which led him to work at the World Trade Center.
• Lisa Luckett seeks justice for her late husband, Edward Luckett, a Cantor Fitzgerald product manager.  Edward left behind a wife and three children.  Lisa has authored a book, The Light in 9/11: Shocked by Kindness, Healed by Love, and has given several TED Talks.
• Matthew Bocchi seeks justice for his father, John Bocchi, who was a Managing Director of Interest Rate Options at Cantor Fitzgerald.  John left behind a wife and four children.  Matthew recently authored a book titled Sway which is about his struggles with loss, addiction, and recovery.  Matthew has spoken about the struggles he has endured, including being molested by his uncle post-9/11 and subsequently becoming an addict.

Immigrants

• Raymond Sanchez, Jr. seeks justice for his father, Raymond Sanchez, an immigrant and carpenter who was laying floors above the impact zone in the South Tower when the plane struck the North Tower.  Mr. Sanchez evacuated and then went back into the South Tower in an attempt to help his apprentice evacuate and died when the building collapsed.

·Zahro Kamardinova seeks justice for her sister, Gavkharoy Kamardinova, an immigrant from Uzbekistan who was in the U.S. on a student visa.  Kamardinova’s family fled religious persecution in China as they are Uyghurs.  Employed at a food stand market in the World Trade Center, she regularly wired money home until 9/11.

Upon request, Anderson Kill can make certain of its client available to discuss their loved ones and their own experience.

Mr. Goldman commented, “For over 22 years, we have pursued justice from those who perpetrated the horrific and unprovoked attacks on 9/11, taking our case not only to judges but to lawmakers – as well as to federal officials holding the keys to vital classified information.  We have never relented and will not rest until we hold the perpetrators of these mass murderous attacks accountable and obtain justice for the victims.”

STATUS OF 9/11 LITIGATIONS AGAINST MULTIPLE PARTIES

Saudi Arabia

Fifteen of the nineteen perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks were Saudi nationals, who carried out the attacked with extensive material support.  The central litigation struggle has been to defeat the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s claims of sovereign immunity (an end enabled in large part by enactment of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act in 2016) and establish Saudi government support of the planning and execution of the attacks.

The case against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) advanced in August 2025, when Judge George B. Daniels in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York denied KSA’s motion to dismiss.  The court held that Plaintiffs had met their burden of proof by offering evidence showing that Saudi employees Bayoumi and Thumairy, and their employer, KSA, knowingly or with deliberate indifference assisted the 9/11 hijackers while acting within the scope of their agency and employment.  The court further held that KSA failed to carry its burden that it was immune from suit, finding KSA’s evidence to be “self-contradictory or not strong enough to overcome the inference[s]” the court drew from the full evidentiary record.  KSA appealed to the Second Circuit, attacking Judge Daniels’ decision, and the plaintiffs filed briefs both supporting that Judge Daniels’ well-reasoned decision denying KSA’s motion to dismiss, and further arguing that the Second Circuit should broaden the basis under which Saudi complicity in the attacks should be considered – recognizing the full extent of the Saudi government’s support for jihadist ideology worldwide.  The Second Circuit will likely rule on the appeals later this year.

Islamic Republic of Iran

The 9/11 plaintiffs sued Iran with strong evidence that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) provided material support to al Qaeda.  Following Iran’s default and the Court’s findings of liability, a series of default judgments awarding compensatory damages judgments to plaintiffs were entered between 2011 and 2026.  The U.S. Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism (VSST) Fund has distributed over $10 billion to eligible victims, including, but not limited to, 9/11 victims.

9/11 plaintiffs also seek to recover from 127,271 Bitcoin (BTC) that was recently recovered from an alleged China-Iran crypto mining operation.  Key issues remain outstanding, including whether these assets can be distributed to terror victims, including victims of the 9/11 attacks.

Taliban

As with Iran, certain 9/11 plaintiffs have been awarded default judgments against the Taliban for complicity in the 9/11 attacks, totaling billions of dollars.  In February 2023, however, the U.S. District Court in Manhattan ruled that $3.5 billion of Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) assets frozen after the Taliban takeover could not be used to compensate 9/11 victims for their default judgments against the Taliban.  The Second Circuit upheld this ruling in August 2025.  Plaintiffs have until August 30, 2026 to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Other defendants

Litigations also remain pending against Sudan (early stages of discovery), various Saudi charities (in the midst of summary judgment motion practice), and Dubai Islamic Bank (on appeal).

PURSUIT OF CLASSIFIED EVIDENCE

While amassing powerful evidence that agents of the Saudi government living in the U.S. provided material support to two of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers, the 9/11 litigants have long pursued classified information to further substantiate the case against KSA and other defendants.  While much information remains withheld, the Biden administration promulgated Executive Order 14040 on September 3, 2021, which mandated a declassification review of many 9/11 documents, as well as materials obtained from Britain’s Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) (New Scotland Yard) which have assisted in the development of the plaintiffs’ case and corroborated many of the plaintiffs’ allegations about key Saudi operatives in Los Angeles, San Diego, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere who supported two hijackers while they were based in San Diego.  The plaintiffs intend to seek additional discovery as the case moves forward to trial.

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Upon request, Mr. Goldman, can provide briefings on cases against all defendants in In Re Terrorist Attacks.

Along with Mr. Goldman, Anderson Kill’s clients in this litigation are represented by Bruce Strong, Ethan Greenberg, Alex Greene, Amy Zelen, Gabrielle Lese, and others.