The founder of a charitable organization has been accused of fabricating a story about homeless veterans being kicked out of New York hotel rooms to make room for migrants.

State Assemblyman Brian Maher told the Times Union this week that he had been misled about a situation purportedly involving homeless veterans, adding that he was “devastated and disheartened” as the story unfolded.

The initial report, from the New York Post, featured claims from Sharon Toney-Finch, CEO of the Yerik Israel Toney Foundation, who said that 20 homeless veterans were told they would need to end their stay early at hotels not far from New York City and find somewhere else to go.

After publication, the story earned widespread attention and bipartisan condemnation, with Republicans and Democrats in New York calling for investigations. Now, with allegations coming out that the whole story was false, Maher has asked the attorney general of Orange County, where the expulsions allegedly took place, and New York’s district attorney to investigate potential misconduct by the Yerik Israel Toney Foundation.

“This is something I believe hurt a lot of people,” Maher said, who explained that he had spoken with individuals he believed to have been veterans displaced by migrants and someone who was said to have transported the migrants from the hotels they were staying at.

Maher said he was left waiting for three hours at a bank to meet up with Toney-Finch to verify that the foundation had paid for shelter for the veterans. A receipt that was purported to be from the organization that had previously been given as proof appeared to have been altered, according to state lawmakers who spoke with the Times Union.

The claim was also disputed by several of the hotels that were implicated in the initial report, saying that Toney-Finch’s narrative was not true. Todd Solloway, an attorney for Crossroads Hotel, said in a Wednesday letter that there “are not now, and never were, any group of veterans at the hotel and certainly none were kicked out to make way for migrant asylum seekers.”

“My client and their staff are receiving serious threats — including death threats — from all over the county as a result of his false accusation,” he added. “And, this morning, the staff at the Hotel were forced to call 911 to seek protection against someone who was menacing the staff at the hotel, claiming he was looking for the veterans.”

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According to Maher, he has worked with Toney-Fitch, an Iraq War veteran who received the Purple Heart, and her foundation several times over the last few years. He said that he asked for her to provide evidence several times in multiple phone calls as he began to believe he may have been lied to.

“Shortly after that, when I asked her why she would make something like that up, she said, ‘I had to help the veterans,’” he told the New York Post.

“Their gross misrepresentation of the facts surrounding our homeless veterans is appalling,” the lawmaker added in a statement.

Several social media influencers filed a lawsuit against the state of Montana asserting that a recent TikTok ban constitutes a violation of the First Amendment.

Lawmakers in Montana passed a statute which prohibits app stores from making TikTok available for download in the state, a move which occurs as federal authorities contend that the platform, which is owned by Chinese technology firm ByteDance, may grant members of the Chinese Communist Party access to users’ data in the United States.

The lawsuit, which was filed in federal court on Wednesday by the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine, said that the state is improperly discriminating against some forms of speech shared through the platform and lacks the ability to enforce laws related to national security.

“Montana has no authority to enact laws advancing what it believes should be the United States’ foreign policy or its national security interests, nor may Montana ban an entire forum for communication based on its perceptions that some speech shared through that forum, though protected by the First Amendment, is dangerous,” the lawsuit said. “Montana can no more ban its residents from viewing or posting to TikTok than it could ban the Wall Street Journal because of who owns it or the ideas it publishes.”

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit include Samantha Alario, who owns a small business that sells swimwear; Heather DiRocco, a former Marine who discusses mental health with fellow veterans; Carly Ann Goddard, who creates content related to life on her ranch; Alice Held, a student who shares her outdoor adventures related to mountain climbing and biking; and Dale Stout, who makes humorous videos. Each of the individuals earn revenue with their TikTok accounts and contend that the prohibition deprives them of their property rights.

Montana Republican Gov. Greg Gianforte, on the other hand, said that the law was intended to protect “private data and sensitive personal information from being harvested by the Chinese Communist Party.” The bill was sponsored by Montana Republican State Sen. Shelley Vance, who remarked that TikTok is a “major threat to our national security.”

Jamal Brown, a spokesman for TikTok who previously worked in the Biden administration, said that more than 200,000 people and 6,000 businesses use the platform in Montana. “We want to reassure Montanans that they can continue using TikTok to express themselves, earn a living, and find community as we continue working to defend the rights of our users inside and outside of Montana,” Brooke Oberwetter, another spokesperson for TikTok, told media outlets.

Beyond the national security concerns, some lawmakers have drawn attention to the censorship practices implemented by TikTok and called for a mandatory divestiture of the platform from ByteDance. Shou Zi Chew, the chief executive of TikTok, insisted in his testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee two months ago that a forced sale of TikTok to an American company would not resolve the issues.

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“I am well aware that the fact that ByteDance has Chinese founders has prompted concerns that our platform could be used as or become a tool of China or the Chinese Communist Party,” the executive remarked. “Divestment doesn’t address the fundamental concerns that I have heard, as a change in ownership would not impose any new restrictions on data flows or access. This is not an issue of nationality.”

Leif Le Mahieu contributed to this report.