However, Levant himself sued a Calgary alternative newspaper and conservative activist Merle Terlesky for $100,000 jointly for publishing a letter by Terlesky which questioned Levant's spending as publisher of the "Western Standard" and alleged that "Ezra looks for any opportunity to poke a Muslim in the eye." Levant's statement of claim said that he "has been lowered in the estimation of right-thinking members of society generally, and has been seriously injured in his credit, character and reputation and has been brought into public scandal, odium and contempt, and has suffered damages," including damage to his "reputation as an entrepreneur." The suit was settled by an apology and paying Levant $5,000. Levant distinguished the two suits by saying that Terlesky made "a false, factual claim" and Levant's motivation in suing was not political. "It wasn’t an attempt to stop him from doing what he does as a living or a sideline. It was to correct a potentially devastating, bizarrely specific allegation of fraud on my part."