Greg Mortenson poses with Sitara "Star" schoolchildren in Wakhan, northeastern Afghanistan in this undated handout file photograph released to Reuters March 11, 2009.

A federal court is expected to hear accusations Wednesday that author and humanitarian Greg Mortenson fabricated parts of his best-selling books "Three Cups of Tea" and "Stones Into Schools." 

A hearing is scheduled in Great Falls, Montana on claims that Mortenson lied about how he came to build schools in Central Asia after losing his way in a failed mountaineering expedition and being nursed back to health in a Pakistani village. 

 The lawsuit — filed by two California residents, a Montana man and an Illinois woman who bought the books — list more than two dozen alleged fabrications and accusations of wrongdoing by Mortenson, publisher Penguin Group, co-author David Oliver Relin and the Central Asia Institute. 

The plaintiffs say Mortenson and the others purposely presented the lies as the truth to trick readers into buying the books and donating to the charity. They accuse Mortenson and the others of racketeering, fraud, deceit, breach of contract and unjust enrichment. 

A First Amendment expert calls the lawsuit absurd, regardless of whether the books contain fabrications. 

'Three Cups of Tea' author Greg Mortenson must pay $1 million to charity

Mortenson did not defame or harm anybody in his books, and barring narrow exceptions like national secrets, he can write what he wants and does not have to justify it, said Wayne Giampietro, a Chicago attorney and general counsel of the First Amendment Lawyers Association. 

"It's his story. It purports to be his experiences. He can say it any way he wants to say. He has the right to publish anything he wants about himself," Giampietro said. "The idea that you can be sued because perhaps they don't like what you wrote, for whatever reason, is absurd." 

Lawyers for Mortenson and Penguin Group plan to argue that very point before U.S. District Judge Sam Haddon. They are asking Haddon to dismiss the lawsuit, which seeks triple the amount of total books sales, plus punitive damages. The lawsuit is asking a judge to order that everybody who bought the books be refunded. Whatever money is left over would go to a humanitarian organization selected by the plaintiffs' attorneys and approved by the court 

That promises to be several million dollars. "Three Cups of Tea" alone sold about 4 million copies. 

The hearing comes less than two weeks after Mortenson and the Montana attorney general announced a $1 million agreement to settle claims that Mortenson mismanaged the Central Asia Institute and misspent its funds. The agreement removes Mortenson from any financial oversight and overhauls the charity's structure, but it did not address the contents of the books. 

That's where the civil lawsuit comes in. The four plaintiffs allege that Mortenson, Relin, Penguin, the Central Asia Institute and Mortenson's consulting group, MC Consulting, were involved in a conspiracy to promote and sell the books based on lies. 
"The enterprise's fraudulent scheme was to make Mortenson into a false hero, to sell books representing to contain true events, when they were false, to defraud millions of unsuspecting purchasers out of the purchase price of the books and to raise millions of dollars in charitable donations for CAI," their lawsuit alleges. 

The claims cite a laundry list of alleged fabrications. They include Mortenson's recollections about holding Mother Teresa's hand while her body was lying in state in 2000, when Mother Teresa actually died three years earlier. 

Those and several other alleged fabrications in the lawsuit were first brought to light last year by author Jon Krakauer and a "60 Minutes" story that questioned the truth behind Mortenson's writings and whether he was benefiting from his charity. Those reports prompted the Montana attorney general's investigation and also the civil lawsuit whose original plaintiffs dropped out months ago. 

One of the lawyers in the case is Larry Drury, who also represented plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit against James Frey, who admitted on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" that he lied in his memoir "A Million Little Pieces." 

That lawsuit ended in a settlement that offered refunds to buyers of the book. 

Drury and fellow plaintiffs' attorney Alexander Blewett say the Mortenson and Frey cases "are stunningly close." 

Mortenson and Penguin don't argue that the events in the books are true, though the publisher says that nobody can rely on the truth or accuracy of autobiographies because they are based on the authors' own recollections. 

Both Mortenson and Penguin argue that the plaintiffs can't prove that they were actually injured by anything that was written in the books and that this lawsuit amounts to a threat to free speech. 

Penguin attorney F. Matthew Ralph says that if a publisher were required to guarantee the truth and accuracy of everything an author says, the costs of publishing books would be prohibitive. 

"No standards exist for drawing the line where 'fiction' becomes 'nonfiction' or vice versa; and the courts are not a proper place for developing such standards or policing that line," Ralph wrote.

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San Diego Police Dept. / Reuters

The Lorax statue at the estate of Theordor Geisl, aka Dr. Seuss, was stolen over the weekend.

Perhaps he ventured off to warn other Once-lers about threats to the environment.

But more likely, the Lorax -- in this case a 2-foot-tall, 300-pound bronze statue that resided in La Jolla, Calif., on the estate of Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss -- was stolen.

Property manager Carl Romero told the San Diego Union Tribune that he and Audrey Geisel, Dr. Seuss’ 90-year-old widow, discovered the statue was missing on Monday morning as they were walking through the garden.

The statue stood beneath a century-old Italian Stone Pine, according to LATimes.com. Romero told the Times that the pine inspired the tree from the book “Horton Hears a Who.” In the story, Horton, an elephant, sits on a branch of the tree.

Romero saw footprints in the garden, a sign that a thief had dragged the statue to the road and lifted it over a fence, the Tribune reported.

The incident recalled an early passage from the Lorax, the book: "And deep in the Grickle-grass, some people say, if you look deep enough you can still see, today, where the Lorax once stood just as long as it could before somebody lifted the Lorax away."

The only Seuss character at the Geisel estate, it was cast and created by Lark Grey Dimond-Cates, Audrey Geisel's daughter and Dr. Seuss' stepdaughter.

“I want very badly to get our little Lorax back home where he belongs,” Dimond-Cates told the Tribune. “Wherever he is, he’s scared, lonely and hungry. He’s not just a hunk of metal to us. He was a family pet.”

The statue, valued at $10,000, featured the Lorax, a squat, orange-whiskered creature, standing atop a wooden stump. The word “Unless” was inscribed at its base, a reference to Lorax's warning that “unless” someone plants the last remaining tree seed, they will disappear from the world.

Universal Pictures recently released a movie loosely based on the story.

Watch The Lorax trailer

Theodor Geisel died in 1991 at age 87.

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