Around 7pm on November 10, a city resident was surprised to see a cluster of 20 to 30 sign-carrying protesters and a film crew gathered near the Legal Aid Justice Center.
While stopped at the traffic light near the LAJC, the resident says an unmasked, college-aged woman approached his car window and asked if he supported immigrants’ rights. When he said yes, she delivered a “spiel,” claiming that the renowned justice center was “hurting immigrants.” She handed him a flier with the heading “LAJC BEWARE” and a call to “report abuse” at the url bewarelajc.com. The site shows a reproduction of the flier and offers a host of broken links.
The protesters have connections with Nexus Services, a Harrisonburg, Virginia-based immigration bail bond company with a well-documented history of illegal practices. Though Nexus is not mentioned on the flier or the website, Nexus Services owns the domain bewarelajc.com, and when pressed, admitted to helping the protesters get organized.
In August 2019, LAJC filed suit against Nexus on behalf of a group of clients who allege they were the victims of a “fraudulent immigration bond scheme” that “preys on immigrants in federal detention centers.” The attorneys general in three states, including Virginia, have investigated the company in recent years.
Legal Aid said it was aware of the event but declined to comment, citing the ongoing litigation.
“The signs were clearly made in one place, by one person,” says the area resident who was approached by the protesters. “That’s not how protests work. In grassroots protests, people like to make [homemade] signs. These were printed, but they were clearly trying to make them look like they were grassroots.”
Another witness who is familiar with the work of LAJC had similar reservations: “The signs said something along the lines of ‘LAJC is anti-immigrant.’ I certainly would not characterize the people there as anti-immigrant, so [the protest] was pretty shocking and strange.”
Nexus initially denied involvement in the protest. “The organizers were actually a group of young people (independent of Nexus) who are active in social justice,” wrote Heather Wilson, a Nexus public relations representative.
After C-VILLE asked why Nexus owned the associated website domain, which was created on November 10, Wilson changed her tune, saying that “Nexus helps set up advocacy websites all the time and the website was provided to the kids as part of their social justice work.”
Searches show that Nexus Services owns dozens of domain names, the majority of which are inactive variations on the word Nexus.
Anna Lohmiller, one of the demonstrators who participated in the event outside LAJC, claims that the group, called The System, is creating a reality TV show. “We go around and we gather information on certain cases that we believe there’s been injustices,” she says. She echoes the allegations on the flier, accusing LAJC of filing false affidavits on behalf of an immigrant who did not understand English.
The System, which currently has eight members, is not a part of Nexus, explains Lohmiller. However, Nexus president Mike Donavon is the lead producer for the show and an advisor to the group.
“He mentors us on a ton of different cases, and he just provides us with some basic knowledge about stuff that’s going on,” Lohmiller says.
Because the group is “just starting out with this,” Nexus also provided them with a domain for their website for free, she adds.
Lohmiller claims that LAJC’s lawsuit against Nexus has nothing to with her Nexus-affiliated group’s decision to protest LAJC. “We don’t independently base our decisions on what Nexus does,” she says.
One of the people who saw the protest in action has a different theory. “I can only guess that they hired fake protesters, and they’re trying to smear the [LAJC],” the witness says.
Last year, LAJC sued Nexus for more than $1 million on behalf of six Central American immigrants, who accused the company of coercing detained immigrants into signing long-term contracts—written mostly in English—that cover their bail through third-party bondsmen. The contracts also force the immigrants, once released, to pay $420 per month for GPS ankle monitoring, plus other fees. The location tracking practice is not required by immigration authorities.
In other states over a period of years, numerous immigrants have accused Nexus of swindling them into predatory terms and conditions they didn’t understand, giving them ankle monitors that burst into flames, and forcing them into insufferable living conditions. Those unable to keep up with payments have reported being threatened with detention or deportation. (As an unlicensed middleman, Nexus has no authority to deliver immigrants to ICE, or force them to attend court hearings.)
“[Nexus] attempts to camouflage its practices by casting itself as a champion of immigrants…when in reality its scheme traps desperate immigrants into paying thousands of dollars, often in amounts far exceeding their bond,” says the LAJC lawsuit. “[This] scheme has siphoned more than $100 million from some of the most vulnerable immigrants and their communities.”
Because ICE requires its excessive bail prices, set as high as $60,000, to be paid by someone with legal status, many detained immigrants—if they are even allowed to post bail—have no choice but to turn to companies like Nexus for freedom, or remain imprisoned until their hearing, which can take months or years.
The lawsuit ultimately contends that Nexus should not be allowed to exist at all. Because Nexus acts as a middleman, rather than dispensing the bonds itself, it cannot be regulated by the federal and state laws that apply to licensed insurance and bail bond agencies. Therefore, it can charge clients heavily inflated prices.
Donovan has publicly condemned the lawsuit, claiming that it is full of “outright lies,” and misconstrues the company’s business model. He’s also accused LAJC of using the plaintiffs for “exposure.”
In 2009, while volunteering for Mike Signer’s unsuccessful lieutenant governor campaign, Donovan and his now-husband Richard Moore landed themselves five months in jail. The pair had rented out rooms and office space under fake names at hotels, and failed to pay the tens of thousands of dollars in bills.
In interviews, Donovan has claimed his months in jail led him to get involved in the bond business. Because of their felonies, he and Moore are prohibited from getting licensed as bondsmen, so they decided to become middlemen.
According to LAJC’s lawsuit, the couple formally established Nexus Services, Inc. in 2013. It has since grown to have more than 30 offices in eight states, with over 6,000 clients.
Since The Washington Post published a story in 2017 exposing the struggles faced by company’s clients, Nexus has been investigated by a string of state and federal government agencies. Last year, the state of Virginia threatened to shut down the company.
In recent months, Nexus has been active in other industries as well. This March it provided funding, described as “pandemic relief,” to the Shenandoah Valley Militia and Citizens Response Unit, a gun rights, anti-government group.
“Americans are being told to stay in their homes, being placed on mandatory lockdowns, and in some places threatened with jail if they violate those orders. This is not America and it’s surely not freedom,” said Donovan, whose company has reportedly violated the rights of undocumented immigrants.