Tag: Alex Jones

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In brief: Basketball fever, deadly tracks, terrorizer pleads, and more

Boylan Heights goes nuts March 30 as UVA takes down Purdue to advance to its first Final Four since 1984. Martyn Kyle

Buzzer beater

UVA heads to the Final Four in Minneapolis April 6 after a heart-stopping 80-75 win over Purdue’s Boilermakers, thanks to a last second bucket by Mamadi Diakite to put the Cavs into overtime. The win marks Virginia’s first appearance in the Final Four since 1984, coach Tony Bennett’s 10th year leading the Hoos, and redemption for last year’s first-round loss to a No. 16 seed.

Guilty plea in CHS threat

Albemarle High senior Joao Pedro Souza Ribeiro, 17, pleaded guilty March 27 to making a racist threat online that shut down Charlottesville city schools for two days last month. The Daily Progress reports Ribeiro told a juvenile court judge that he was “bored” in study hall and posted the threat as a joke. He’ll be sentenced April 24. Another Albemarle teen was charged with a felony for a shooting threat to Albemarle High, but police have not released his name.

Suing Alex Jones

Federal Judge Norman Moon ruled that Clean Virginia exec Brennan Gilmore’s defamation lawsuit against Infowars, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and others of his ilk can proceed. Gilmore videoed James Fields plowing into protesters August 12, 2017, and he alleges the defendants spread false information about him, resulting in death threats against him and his family. Jones is also being sued by Sandy Hook parents for claiming the mass murder of children was staged.

One train, two deaths

A Buckingham Branch train struck Sebastian Herrera, 39, of Waynesboro, around noon March 31 in Crozet, and then hours later killed an unidentified man in Waynesboro. Herrera, the third person to die on the train tracks in Crozet since 2015, was killed near Lanetown Road, close to where a Time-Disposal employee died last year.

Orange hotbed

The gated community Lake of the Woods has been the scene of alleged criminal activity recently. Ryan Chamblin, 36, was indicted on 161 counts of possession of child porn March 25. He’d previously been charged with five counts and two of failure to register as a sex offender. That same day, Stafford resident Roy C. Mayberry, 46, was indicted for embezzling more than $450,000 from the Lake of the Woods Association.

Quote of the week

“It’s clear that you would lynch me if you could so I’m never concerned with your thoughts.” —Mayor Nikuyah Walker in a Facebook comment to Justin Beights, who sarcastically said her negativity is inspiring.

Crime pays—a little into government coffers

Cash-strapped localities have been known to use speed traps to plug their budget holes (ahem, Greene County), and after the Department of Justice found that law enforcement in Ferguson, Missouri, had effectively been acting as tax collectors (bringing 23 percent of the town’s revenue in fines and fees), a 2017 report said that a number of other municipalities were doing the same thing. But it’s not the case in Charlottesville and Albemarle. 

“CPD does not use ‘speed traps,’” says Charlottesville police spokesperson Tyler Hawn. “We use traffic enforcement to ensure drivers are following the posted speed limits and rules of the road for everyone’s safety.”

As City Council finalizes its 2020 budget, it voted April 1 to up the local meals and lodging taxes (and seems likely to not raise the real estate tax, after “finding” another $850,000). With all that cash, citizen criminal activities make a small revenue contribution to the proposed $188 million budget. Albemarle County also gets revenue from convictions, a .1% pittance in its $487 million budget.

Here’s how some of the numbers stack up in the proposed fiscal year 2020 budget.

Charlottesville

Court revenue $500,000

Parking fines $420,000

Property tax $73.3 million

Meals tax $14.9 million

Lodging tax $6.4 million

 

Albemarle

Fines and forfeitures: $457,282

Property tax $201 million

Meals tax $9.8 million

Lodging tax $1.2 million

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Center of conspiracy: Defamation suit targets Alex Jones

Elizabeth Wydra (center), president of D.C.’s Constitutional Accountability Center, says defendants can’t hide behind the First Amendment when alleging bogus conspiracy theories about her client, local man Brennan Gilmore (right), to a national audience. Staff photo

Infowars founder Alex Jones has made a career out of broadcasting anti-government and right-wing conspiracy theories on his website and various radio shows. Last year, he put local man Brennan Gilmore in his crosshairs, alleging that the Charlottesville musician is a deep state operative on George Soros’ personal payroll who helped orchestrate the August 12, 2017, car attack. But Gilmore is fighting back with a federal defamation lawsuit, which he filed last spring.

Attorneys for Jones and multiple other defendants were in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia on November 13 to argue motions to dismiss the lawsuit. They say Gilmore’s crew filed the lawsuit in the wrong court, and moreover, that their clients’ actions were protected by the First Amendment.

If Gilmore’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s taken on several roles across town, including playing guitar in Wild Common, being Tom Perriello’s chief of staff during the Democrat’s gubernatorial run, and filming a video that immediately went viral of a Dodge Challenger ramming into a group of counterprotesters at the August 2017 Unite the Right white supremacist rally.

It’s that video that has made him a target for right-wing conspiracy theories allegedly created by Jones and other defendants, who are listed as Lee Stranahan, Lee Ann McAdoo, Scott Creighton, James Hoft, Derrick Wilburn, former Florida Republican congressman Allen B. West, and Free Speech Systems, LLC.

Defense attorney Andrew Grossman drew specific attention to an August 15 interview of former Breitbart News employee Stranahan by Infowars reporter McAdoo, in which they suggest that Gilmore’s involvement in the car attack was intended to stage a coup to overthrow the president.

Grossman, who came from Washington, D.C., called it “the kind of exaggerated rhetoric that can not be taken literally,” and suggested that such hyperbole is often used in the news.

But the plaintiffs don’t agree, and allege that Jones’ claims of thorough fact-checking can’t be true.

“Fact-based journalism is essential to our democracy, because it provides citizens with objective, reality-based information on issues of public concern,” says their lawsuit. “Defendants are not fact-based journalists. Defendants spread lies to construct false narratives that terrify a gullible audience, all in a desperate attempt to generate revenue and momentum for a hateful agenda.”

Grossman said plaintiffs were drawing their own conclusions about what Jones meant by some of his statements. “That’s not how defamation works,” the attorney said. “You can’t sue someone over an alleged interpretation.”

He also said that because Gilmore is a public figure, the judge must find that defendants committed actual malice to classify their statements as defamatory.

But Elizabeth Wydra, who is the president of the Constitutional Accountability Center in D.C. and one of several attorneys representing Gilmore, said it was the defendants who made Gilmore a public figure by their outrageous claims against him.

Outside the courthouse, she said, “We shouldn’t have everyday citizens dragged through the mud—dragged into the spotlight—simply because they happened to witness something that is of public interest.”

She said folks like Jones and other defendants shouldn’t be able to hide behind the First Amendment when they publish “terrible claims,” such as the one connecting her client to the murder of Heather Heyer.

“The law does not protect that,” says Wydra. “There are consequences when you speak and act in a way that creates harm to a person like Mr. Gilmore, who suffered threats. He’s suffered harassment, he’s suffered harm to his reputation.”

Added Gilmore, “I just want to ensure that the next person who finds himself in that position, they don’t have to suffer the same injury. That’s why we’re here today.”

Manassas-based defense attorney Aaron Walker, who represents about half a dozen of the defendants, told reporters that a ruling in favor of Gilmore could be the beginning of the “death of the freedom of the press.”

“This is a dangerous case, to be blunt,” said Walker, and taking a dig at the plaintiffs’ stance on his clients, he said, “They just don’t like their opinions.”

To be fair, neither does he. On the topic of Jones, whom the Southern Poverty Law Center has called “the most prolific conspiracy theorist in America,” he said, “I dislike him, personally.”

Judge Norman Moon has not yet ruled on whether the lawsuit will proceed. Jones, meanwhile, is embroiled in multiple other defamation lawsuits filed by relatives of children killed in the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, after Jones falsely claimed that the shooting was staged by the government and that the parents of the murdered children were “crisis actors.”

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This week in brief: Snuffing out tiki torches, ‘really dank bud’ and too cute puppies

Close up of a burning tiki torch on a blurred colored background.

Candles in, tiki torches out

Just ahead of Jason Kessler’s March 6 lawsuit against the city complaining that City Manager Maurice Jones unconstitutionally denied his permit for a two-day August 12 anniversary rally—Jones also denied five other applicants’ permit requests for the weekend—City Council updated its event permit regulations February 20.

  • 45-day notice if street closure requested, 30 days if not
  • Prohibited: Open flames, except for hand-held candles for ceremonial events
  • Prohibited (partial list): Pellet guns, air rifles, nunchucks, tasers, heavy gauge metal chains, poles, bricks, rocks, metal beverage or food cans or containers, glass bottles, axes, skateboards, swords, knives, metal pipes, pepper or bear spray, mace, bats, sticks, clubs, drones and explosives
  • Prohibited: Dressing like cops, military or emergency personnel
  • Small group exception: Up to 50 citizens may spontaneously demonstrate without a permit

Highlights from Kessler’s complaint:

  • The city couldn’t guarantee a clear path to enter Emancipation Park for his fellow Lee statue-loving protesters.
  • The permit denial is based on crowd size, but there’s plenty of room in the one-acre park, which could hold as many as 20,000 people “cheek to jowl.”
  • Because of the city’s “misconduct,” fewer people will attend and a “reduced crowd will dilute” Kessler’s message.
  • The city’s denial was based on Kessler’s viewpoint and violates his First and 14th Amendment rights.

 

Quote of the Week: “You’re more likely to be killed by @timkaine running mate @HillaryClinton than you are by an AR-15.” —A March 8 tweet by failed gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart, who stopped by Charlottesville March 10 during his campaign for Senate.

 

How much is that puppy in the browsing window?

Attorney General Mark Herring says his consumer protection team continues to receive complaints from people “who thought they were buying an incredibly cute puppy from an online breeder, only to find out it was a scam and the dog didn’t exist.” Red flags for this scam include stock photos, exotic or designer breeds for cheap, and poorly made websites that include misspellings and grammatical errors, he says.

Life and then some

Cathy Rothgeb

A jury recommended a 184-year sentence for Cathy S. Rothgeb, the former Orange County youth softball coach found guilty on March 12 on 30 of 34 charges, which include forcible sodomy, aggravated sexual battery and object sexual penetration of two former athletes. The alleged molestations began in the ’90s, when one victim testified that she was 9 years old.

Assault and battery

A Western Albemarle High School teacher has been placed on administrative leave after he was arrested for a physical altercation with a student on February 16. Oluwole Adesina, a 53-year-old Crozet resident, faces up to a year in jail or a $2,500 fine for the misdemeanor assault and battery charge.

Green acres

Hogwaller Farm, a nine-acre development with 30 apartments and an urban farm, has been proposed near Moores Creek along Nassau Street, according to the Daily Progress, which reported March 11 that developer Justin Shimp submitted a zoning amendment pre-application last summer to ask Albemarle officials to change the light-industrial designation to rural so he could plant seven acres of “really dank bud.”

New hire

Roger Johnson. Courtesy of Albemarle County

Albemarle County announced its hiring of economic development director Roger Johnson from Greenville, North Carolina on March 7, for a job that’s been open for over a year. The last person to hold it lasted for 19 months.

Guilty plea

Joshua Lamar Carter, 27, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on March 12 for firing a gun at city police officers in 2016. In a plea agreement, he entered an Alford plea to one charge of attempted second-degree murder and pleaded guilty to shooting a gun in a public place and illegally possessing a firearm as a felon.

A headline we’re starting to get used to: Another August 12 lawsuit

Georgetown Law’s Civil Rights Clinic filed a federal defamation lawsuit March 13 on behalf of a Unite the Right rally counterprotester who claims to be a victim of fake news conspiracies.

Brennan Gilmore’s cell phone footage of the deadly car attack on Fourth Street went viral on August 12, and “Gilmore was contacted by media outlets to discuss his experience and soon became the target of elaborate online conspiracies that placed him at the center of a ‘deep-state’ plot to stage the attack and destabilize the Trump administration,” says a press release from the law group.

Now he’s suing defendants Alex Jones, Infowars, former Congressman Allen West and others for “intentional infliction of emotional distress” and “mobilizing an army of followers to pursue a campaign of harassment and threats against him.” The lawsuit seeks punitive damages and compensation for Gilmore’s alleged reputational injuries and emotional distress.

“From Sandy Hook to Pizzagate to Charlottesville, Las Vegas and now Parkland, the defendants thrive by inciting devastating real-world consequences with the propaganda and lies they publish as news,” says Gilmore. “Today, I’m asking a court to hold them responsible for the personal and professional damage their lies have caused me, and, more importantly, to deter them from repeating this dangerous pattern of defamation and intimidation.”