Former Yale student is seeking to exact very costly revenge against female prosecutor and women's rights groups who falsely accused him of rape

An Afghan refugee who won a full scholarship to Yale is suing 15 women's organizations and their former attorney for calling him a rapist after he was cleared of the crime.

Saifullah Khan was charged with raping a fellow student at the Ivy League college after a Halloween party in 2015, but he sued her for defamation after a jury found him not guilty in March 2018.

The saga became one of the most famous talking points of the #MeToo movement, with 78,000 people signing a petition demanding Khan's expulsion, and the accused man appearing in a Louis Theroux documentary.

The former neuroscience student filed a $110 million claim against the college when it expelled him, and he has now launched an action against the groups that tried to stop him from suing his accuser.

'It is essential to hold accountable those who make false accusations while continuing to support and protect genuine victims of abuse,' said Khan's lawyer, Alex Taubes.

Khan, now 31, was expected to graduate 'with a Yale baccalaureate,' and 'was on the cusp of a world filled with promise,' according to his lawyers, after he won a place at the college in 2012.

On Halloween night 2015, he went to an off-campus party of the college's Shabtai Jewish society with his accuser before the pair attended a performance by the Yale Student Orchestra at Woolsey Hall.

She told police she had never been drunk before but had consumed so much alcohol at the party that she threw up before returning to her dorm, where she claimed, Khan forced himself on her.

She reported the alleged attack the following morning and Khan was suspended by the college for more than two years until the case reached court in March 2018, when a jury cleared him in less than three hours.

But in October of that year Khan was suspended again after another student accused him of slapping him during a threesome and physically attacking him on several occasions.

He then found himself hauled before the college's Committee on Sexual Misconduct, at which his original accuser repeated her allegations of sexual assault.

Khan was expelled three months later, after the committee found against him, and he pursued his legal action against his accuser and the college by the end of 2019.

A judge threw out the case against his accuser on the grounds that witnesses and victims have absolute immunity against defamation in 'quasi-judicial hearings'.

But the Connecticut Supreme Court reinstated it on appeal after finding that Yale's committee hearing had lacked due process because Khan had not been allowed to call witnesses or cross-examine his accuser.

Fifteen civil rights groups- including Jewish Women International, Legal Momentum, the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, and the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence - had demanded that the supreme court throw out Khan's defamation case.

They banded together to put their names behind an amicus brief, which is a submission from a party not directly involved in a case.

But despite Khan's acquittal, the original version of their brief flatly asserted that 'When Jane Doe was in college, the Plaintiff raped her.'

The amicus brief was later revised after objections from Khan's lawyers, but they believe he has the right to sue them for defamation because the original wording remains permanently online as part of the legal record.

'Defendants, organizations with assets exceeding $200,000,000 and an experienced attorney, repeated allegations as facts in an application to file a brief with the Connecticut Supreme Court,' his latest filing claims.

Attorney Jennifer Becker, who represented the groups, issued a formal apology for the wording.

But Khan's legal team claims her culpability was compounded because she 'spent over six years serving as an Assistant District Attorney for the Bronx County District Attorney Office, where she prosecuted hundreds of cases, including rape cases.'

Khan is now seeking both both compensatory and punitive damages for 'defamation, false light, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and abuse of process' claiming 'grievous harm' to his reputation and well-being.

Taubes accused the groups of 'making reckless and damaging statements without accountability, potentially undermining the principle that acquittal should underscore the presumption of innocence.'

'Defamatory statements that disregard due process not only harm the individuals involved but also weaken the integrity of our legal system,' he told The College Fix.

'A victory would underscore the importance of accurate and fair representation in legal filings and public statements,' he added.