The parents of a murdered Democratic National Committee staffer whose death fueled a right-wing conspiracy over DNC emails published by WikiLeaks during last year's presidential election filed suit against Fox News late Tuesday, alleging the company's publication of the initial story made them “collateral damage in a political war to which they are innocent bystanders.”

The suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by Joel and Mary Rich, whose son, Seth, was murdered in July 2016, accuses Fox News reporter Malia Zimmerman and frequent guest and political operative Ed Butowsky of “intentionally exploit[ing] this tragedy—including through lies, misrepresentations and half-truths—with disregard for the obvious harm that their actions would cause Joel and Mary.”

“No parent should ever have to live through what we have been forced to endure. The pain and anguish that comes from seeing your murdered son's life and legacy treated as a mere political football is beyond comprehension,” the Riches said in a joint statement.

The Riches' suit is the latest legal action taken in the Southern District over the May 16, 2017, publication and subsequent removal of the article written by Zimmerman that suggested Rich's murder was connected to his alleged contact with WikiLeaks prior to his death. The Riches' suit goes on to point to programming on Fox that they claim propagated baseless assertions that their son provided the DNC emails to WikiLeaks, even after Fox retracted Zimmerman's article a week after its publication.

Massey & Gail name attorney Leonard Gail, whose firm represents the parents, said the suit sought to hold the defendants “accountable for their reprehensible actions.”

“Whether motivated by party politics, ratings, corporate profit or personal gain, we hope to help prevent this kind of malicious and reckless behavior in the future so that others can be spared the hell the Riches have had to endure,” Gail said in a statement.

In October, Rod Wheeler, a former Fox News commentator who is quoted in the Zimmerman article, filed his own defamation lawsuit against the news organization, Butowsky and Zimmerman, claiming among other things that the two individuals used fake quotes attributed to him. That case remains ongoing.

In a statement, a Fox News spokeswoman said the company declined to comment on pending litigation.

Reached by phone Wednesday, Butowsky, a Dallas-based financial adviser, said that, even as he felt compelled to defend himself, “who wants to defend themselves against grieving parents? Of course I don't want to.”

Since he didn't write the article, suing him over it amounted to a “frivolous, baseless lawsuit.” He claimed that his interactions with the parents prior to its publication was simply in an attempt to help.

“Not only does my heart go out to them, but my wallet went out to them,” he said, appearing to refer at least to his offer to pay Wheeler to investigate Rich's death.

Butowsky said that Joel Rich had been “very happy with the article” when it was initially published. All he's ever asked from the couple, he said, was for them to “tell people what they know.” Butowsky went on to state that he has communications between himself and the couple that he says substantiate the core of the theory promoted by the Fox News article—that Rich provided WikiLeaks with emails.

“If I chose to do discovery, they're opening themselves up to a lot,” he said, “because they told me they didn't want people to know what their son did.”