1st student black student at American Univ. claims $ 1.5 million in damages to the founder of the neo-Nazi site

April 30, 2019, 17:06 UTC

By Associated press

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – The first black woman to hold the position of president of the US university student government claims more than $ 1.5 million in court ordered damages against a neo website operator -Nazi who orchestrated an online harassment campaign against him.

In a lawsuit Monday, Taylor Dumpson's lawyers asked a federal judge in Washington to render a default judgment against Daily Stormer founder Andrew Anglin and a disciple accused of racially harassing Dumpson on Twitter. Dumpson sued Anglin and the Internet troll last April, but none of them responded.

Dumpson claims more than $ 1.8 million in damages, fees and costs, including $ 1.5 million in punitive damages against Anglin and its company, Moonbase Holdings LLC.

Anglin did not immediately respond to an e-mail requesting comments on Dumpson's application.

The Anglin website takes its name from Der Stürmer, a newspaper that published Nazi propaganda in Nazi Germany and includes sections titled "Jewish Problem" and "Racial War." For months, the site was struggling to stay online after Anglin published an article mocking the woman killed by a man who had poked his car into a crowd of counter-partisans at a police station. White Nationalist Gathering in Charlottesville, Virginia, August 2017.

Anglin also faces possible default judgments in two separate lawsuits filed by other targets of his online troll campaigns, a US-Muslim radio host and a Jewish real estate agent in Montana.

In February, SiriusXM Radio broadcaster 's attorneys, Dean Obeidallah, asked a federal court in Ohio to award him more than a million dollars in damages. interests for his claims that Anglin had wrongly accused him of terrorism.

Anglin did not respond to Obeidallah's complaint, but he hired lawyers to defend him against a federal lawsuit that Tanya Gersh had brought against him as a result of a "troll storm" that he had unleashed against his family.

A federal magistrate ruled that Anglin should be present in the United States for a deposition of Gersh's lawyers from the Southern Poverty Law Center. Anglin says that he lives abroad and that it is too dangerous for him to travel to the United States. In an order last week, the magistrate warned Anglin that he is facing a default judgment against him if he does not appear for a scheduled testimony on Tuesday. Rebecca Sturtevant, a spokeswoman for the Alabama-based legal center, said Mr. Anglin did not show up for his scheduled statement.

In December, Dumpson reached a settlement with a third person she sued, Evan James McCarty, a resident of Oregon. He published on Twitter under the pseudonym "Byron of the Vandal", an apparent reference to Byron De La Beckwith, who murdered civil rights leader Medgar Evers in 1963. The settlement agreement required that McCarty obtain a " anti-hate training ", excuse writing. and on video and publicly renounce white supremacy.

Anglin and the remaining remaining accused, Brian Andrew Ade, were not involved in the settlement.

A day after the inauguration of Dumpson in May 2017 as a student government president, someone suspended bananas with hate messages on the campus of the university. The authorities investigated but did not identify any suspects. Anglin has published an article on the incident, including links to the Dumpson Facebook page and the Twitter page of the US government university.

"In the article, Anglin targeted Ms. Dumpson using racist language and directed her supporters towards the" troll storm "Ms. Dumpson by harassing her via social media," wrote her attorneys in the Monday's ranking.

According to Dumpson, Anglin's article provoked an avalanche of threatening and harassing messages that caused her severe mental and physical trauma and left her fearing for her safety.

"Some days, she was unable to hold a conversation without an anxiety attack, getting up from bed and having a good meal or doing anything other than staring at the ceiling," wrote her lawyer.

Dumpson, now a law student, is represented by lawyers from the Civil Rights Lawyers Committee under the law. His complaint accuses the defendants of violating the 1977 Human Rights Act in the District of Columbia and the 1989 Bias-Related Crimes Act.

His lawyers are asking the court to award $ 124,022 in legal fees. They also claim $ 100,000 in punitive damages against Ade and $ 101,429 in compensatory damages against Ade, Anglin and his company.

Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Washington-based civil rights group, said the judgments could be a deterrent and send a message to other white supremacists that they would be held accountable for their actions. .

"We see no reason to walk lightly here," Clarke said Tuesday. "We have a client who has suffered tremendously because of the conduct of the accused."