Tag: lawsuits

Woman housed in cell with trans-identifying male pedophile sues Washington state prisons over sexual assault

A former inmate at the Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW) filed a lawsuit against the state’s Department of Corrections on Friday, claiming she was subjected to alleged sexual abuse and harassment in 2022 after being housed with a trans-identifying biological male pedophile while incarcerated.

In the lawsuit, plaintiff Mozzy Clark-Sanchez alleged that WCCW staff placed her in a cell with a male inmate who was transferred from a men’s prison after he “claimed to identify as a woman.” That male, the lawsuit contends, is 35-year-old Christopher Williams, a 6’4 convicted pedophile serving a 28.5-year prison sentence for brutally assaulting his former girlfriend, court records show. He was previously convicted of child rape and is alleged to have subjected Clark-Sanchez to repeated harassment and sexual abuse. Clark-Sanchez is a survivor of child rape and previously said she was “raped by my uncle, and my mom used to sell me to pay for drugs.”

Clark-Sanchez alleged that Williams would frequently and graphically describe sexual acts he wanted to do to her and would fondle her as she slept. The plaintiff said in the suit that she would wake up to find Williams’ hands on her genitals, breasts, and legs. On at least one occasion, a prison guard caught Williams in the act and rather than remove him from the cell, ordered Williams back to his bunk. Clark-Sanchez said that on one occassion Williams brought a strap-on dildo into the cell and asked her to use it on him. Williams is also accused of repeatedly leering at female inmates while they showered.

Prison officials ignored her concerns, Clark-Sanchez said, and tried to convince her not to file official complaints. She said that they cautioned her about potential retaliation from Williams, Kiro 7 News reported. The suit claims that DOC officials were cognizant of William’s previous behavior, including sexual misconduct with another female cellmate, but they neglected to take the necessary measures to safeguard Clark-Sanchez.

The lawsuit also alleges that WCCW and DOC policies of housing biologically male prisoners who have known histories of violence and sexual offenses in women’s facilities violate the constitutional rights of female inmates.

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Alabama Teen Killed During ‘No-Knock’ Drug Raid Had His Hands Raised, Lawsuit Says

A 16-year-old teenager had his hands raised when he was fatally shot by police during an unauthorized “no-knock” drug raid in Mobile, Alabama, last year, according to a civil rights lawsuit filed by his mother in federal court earlier this month.

The lawsuit against the City of Mobile and several anonymous Mobile police officers says Randall Adjessom came out of his room holding a gun when he heard someone break down the front door of the house where he lived with his mother, grandmother, aunt, and sisters. When he realized the intruders were police, he put his hands in the air and stepped back, but a Mobile Police Department (MPD) SWAT officer shot him four times.

“The complaint is replete with revelations from our pre-suit investigation,” civil rights attorneys representing Adjessom’s mother said in a press release accompanying the suit, “perhaps none more repulsive than the fact that MPD body-worn camera (BWC) video of the shooting clearly shows Randall begin to retreat after realizing the intruders into his family home were members of the police force when he was repeatedly shot and killed in cold blood.”

And after he was shot, the suit says, police left Adjessom to bleed out on the floor for four minutes before half-heartedly rendering medical aid.

If true, the lawsuit’s narrative—which purports to be backed by video evidence, internal affairs reviews, and a recent independent audit of the Mobile Police Department—is another tragic example of what happens when the drug war, unregulated SWAT teams, and the Second Amendment right to self-defense mix.

An MPD SWAT team executed a “no-knock” search warrant on November 18, 2023, as part of an investigation into Adjessom’s older adult brother for suspected marijuana sales. However, the lawsuit says Adjessom’s brother did not live at the residence the MPD acquired a search warrant for—only Adjessom, who was a minor, and several women in his family.  

The lawsuit says there were numerous problems with the raid besides the absence of its only articulated target: MPD officers intentionally didn’t evaluate the risk to civilians in its pre-warrant threat assessment or note the presence of civilians in its search warrant affidavit; didn’t obtain authorization for a nighttime raid from a judge, supervisor, or prosecutor; and failed to announce themselves until after they had breached the front door and entered the house. 

All those errors became a force that swept together—like a malevolent current—the MPD SWAT officers and Randall Adjessom, who came out of his bedroom and turned into the hallway holding a gun with a laser sight.

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Former ‘GMA Producer’ Accused of Taking Thousands from Florida Lobbying Firm for ‘Hit Job’ Interviews Sues NPR, Floodlight, and High-Profile Players

Freelance television producer Kristen Hentschel has filed a high-profile lawsuit against a web of powerful individuals and organizations, alleging that a conspiracy led to the destruction of her once-flourishing career.

The ‘Emmy-nominated producer’ accuses Jeffrey Pitts, a former CEO of the controversial consulting firm Matrix LLC, along with public relations powerhouse McNicholas & Associates, and prominent news outlets NPR and Floodlight, of orchestrating a campaign of defamation, false light, and invasion of privacy.

“Plaintiff Kristen Hentschel (“Plaintiff” or “Hentschel”) brings this action against Defendant Jeffrey Pitts (“Pitts”) for tortious interference with business relationships, defamation, false light, and invasion of privacy, against Defendant McNicholas & Associates, Inc. (“McNicholas”) for invasion of privacy and false light, and against Defendants National Public Radio, Inc. (“NPR”) and Floodlight, Inc. (“Floodlight”) for defamation and false light,” according to the court filing obtained by The Gateway Pundit.

Hentschel, who previously worked behind the scenes at ABC News, claims her professional and personal life became collateral damage in a power struggle between Pitts and Matrix’s owner, Joe Perkins.

The allegations center on Pitts, who allegedly “groomed” Hentschel to serve his interests before sacrificing her career to protect high-profile clients, including Florida Power & Light and Florida Crystals.

Hentschel contends that Pitts provided false information to media outlets, resulting in NPR and Floodlight publishing defamatory articles that irreparably damaged her reputation.

The stories, published in late 2022, accused Hentschel of unethical journalism practices, including leveraging her ABC credentials for corporate espionage—a claim she vehemently denies.

The Journalist’s Resource reported that the operations of Matrix LLC, a political consulting firm, and its alleged payments to local news outlets to shape coverage in favor of powerful clients, might have remained undisclosed if not for an anonymous whistleblower who leaked hundreds of internal documents in 2022.

The leaked trove included emails, financial ledgers, and other records that laid bare the firm’s covert tactics.

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Pasco County Sheriff Will End Predictive Policing Program to Settle Lawsuit Over Harassment

The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office is permanently scuttling a predictive policing program that was the subject of critical media investigations and a pending civil rights lawsuit alleging the program amounted to frequent unconstitutional harassment of families.

In a settlement agreement ending that civil rights lawsuit, the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office acknowledged that its “Intelligence Led Policing” (ILP) program exceeded officers’ implied license to knock on doors and perform offender checks, interfering with the plaintiffs’ First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

One of those plaintiffs, Darlene Deegan, was harassed for three years by Pasco sheriff’s deputies after her opioid-addicted son was flagged by the program. This included repeated, day-after-day visits to her house by police, demanding to know where her son was, and accruing $3,000 in fines for petty code violations, allegedly in retaliation for her refusal to cooperate.

“For years, the Pasco Sheriff’s Office treated me like it could do anything it wanted,” Deegan said in a press release issued by the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm that represented her and several other county residents. “But today proves that when ordinary people stand up for themselves, the Constitution still means what it says.”

The Institute for Justice filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in 2021 on behalf of Deegan and three other Pasco County residents who claimed the harassment violated their constitutional rights.

In addition to ending the ILP program and agreeing not to create a similar one, the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office will pay $105,000 to the four plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

A 2020 Tampa Bay Times investigation first revealed how the ILP program used algorithms to flag “prolific offenders” that it believed were likely to be future offenders. Many of them were juveniles, such as 15-year-old Rio Wojtecki. Once someone was added to the list, deputies targeted their family, workplace, and friends and associates for suspicionless “checks,”  including at nighttime. Deputies contacted Wojtecki or his family 21 times over a four-month period—at his house, at his gym, and at his parents’ work. When Wojtecki’s older sisters refused to let deputies inside the house during one late-night visit, a deputy shouted, “You’re about to have some issues.”

“Make their lives miserable until they move or sue,” was how one former deputy described the program to the newspaper. Body camera footage obtained by the Tampa Bay Times backed up both the residents’ and whistleblowers’ claims that deputies used frivolous code violations to retaliate against targets.

The Pasco County Sheriff’s Office originally defended the ILP program. A department spokeswoman told a Florida news outlet in 2022, in response to another lawsuit over the program, that the “ILP philosophy attempts to connect those who have previously offended with resources to break the cycle of recidivism. This ILP philosophy has led to a reduction in crime and reduction in victimization in our community and we will not apologize for continued efforts to keep our community safe.”

But last year the department announced in court that it was phasing out the “prolific offender” list. The Institute for Justice hopes that the settlement agreement will stop the program from ever being resurrected.

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Rumble Sues California; Says State’s “War Against Political Speech Is Censorship”

Video streaming site Rumble has filed a lawsuit against the state of California in response to legislation forcing social media platforms to censor political speech.

Rumble is being represented by The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which filed suit against AB 2655, aka the “Defending Democracy from Deepfake Deception Act of 2024,” in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, Sacramento Division.

The legislation is Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom’s response to a deepfake satire video of Kamala Harris that was shared on X by Elon Musk among others.

ADF stated in a press release that the law “deputizes” Rumble to restrict its user’s free speech, while another law, AB 2839, “Protecting Democracy Against Election Disinformation and Deepfakes,” uses vague standards to punish individuals posting political content about elections.

“California’s war against political speech is censorship, plain and simple. We can’t trust the government to decide what is true in our online political debates,” said ADF Senior Counsel Phil Sechler.

“Rumble is one of the few online voices stepping up against this trend of censorship while other platforms and sites cave to totalitarian regimes censoring Americans,” Sechler further urged.

He added that “Rumble is standing for free speech even when it is hard. Other online platforms and media companies must see these laws for what they are — a threat to their existence.”

Chris Pavlovski, Chairman and CEO of Rumble, further urged that “The very thought of the government judging the content of political speech, and then deciding whether it should be permitted, censored, or eliminated altogether is about the most chilling thing you could imagine.”

“Rumble
will always celebrate freedom and support creative independence, so we’re delighted to work with ADF to help protect lawful online expression,” Pavlovski asserted.

The Democratic Party is pushing hard to enact laws that force censorship.

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Lawsuit Filed After LGBT Promoter Stages ‘Setup’ on Christian Jewelry-Store Worker, Gets Her Fired

‘It appears as though Kay Jewelers is anti-Christian.’

A lawsuit has been filed against Kay Jewelers after a Christian employee was fired for talking about her faith with a co-worker.

Commentator Todd Starnes explained the situation had the markings of a “setup.”

“The conversation happened in a back work area at a Kay Jewelers in Fairlawn, Ohio. The coworker continuously pressed (Mika) Cohen for her personal opinions about Pride Month. Finally, she explained that she is a Christian and shared her sincerely held beliefs on God’s definition of marriage and sexuality,” he explained. “A few weeks later Kay Jewelers launched a HR investigation into the conversation alleging her remarks were inappropriate.”

Shortly later, she was fired.

“It certainly appears as though Cohen is the victim of a setup by a pro-LGBT staffer. To make matters even worse, it appears as though Kay Jewelers is anti-Christian. Diamonds may be a girl’s best friend, but Kay Jewelers is certainly no friend to Christians,” he said.

It is the American Center for Law and Justice that took on the case.

It said it is defending “an employee’s right to express her religious beliefs,” this time in Ohio.

Cohen was dismissed by Kay from her position as assistant manager in Fairlawn, Ohio, for sharing her Christian beliefs with a co-worker after repeatedly being asked to do so, the legal team said.

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ICAN’s Lawsuit Results in CDC Deleting its Policy of Censoring Claimed “Misinformation”

As a result of the lawsuit ICAN filed against CDC for blocking an individual on its official X (Twitter) account, not only did CDC unblock users, but the agency has now deleted its policy of blocking users for purported “misinformation.”

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a journalist who was blocked by CDC on X after she posted comments critical of CDC policy. We previously reported that, shortly after we filed the suit, CDC promptly unblocked her and others.

Now, CDC has notified ICAN’s attorneys that it has made significant changes to its former public comment policy. Previously, its policy allowed CDC to hide or delete comments that it felt contained “misleading or false information,” defamation, name calling, personal attacks, or spam. It also stated that “repeated violations” may “cause the author to be blocked.”

The new policy—which applies to all CDC sites, social media profiles, blogs, and applications that allow public comments—contains none of these restrictions!

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Ireland’s New Online Censorship Rules Face Showdown With X in Court

X has initiated a High Court challenge against Ireland’s media authority, Coimisiún na Meán, over a newly introduced censorship code that imposes stringent regulations on video-sharing platforms.

The contentious safety code, finalized in October, emerged following the enactment of Ireland’s Online Safety and Media Regulation Act. Rooted in the European Commission’s Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD), the code obliges platforms under Irish jurisdiction to implement measures shielding users—particularly children—from harmful content. Platforms found non-compliant could face severe penalties, including fines of up to €20 million or 10% of annual revenue, whichever is greater.

For platforms like X,  Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and more, the code signals a dramatic shift away from self-regulation and gives Ireland’s regulators more control over online speech.

According to Coimisiún na Meán, the rules are designed to curtail the dissemination of “harmful” material. Criminal content, such as child exploitation or terrorism-related media, also falls within the prohibited categories but was already covered by previous laws.

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O’Keefe Scores Victory in 11th Circuit of Appeals Against CNN in Defamation Case

James O’Keefe has scored a significant victory in his ongoing legal battle against CNN, with a ruling in his favor from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. This victory comes after three years, thousands of miles traveled, and nearly a million dollars in legal fees in his defamation case against the network.

In 2021 when CNN’s Ana Cabrera falsely accused Project Veritas (PV) of promoting misinformation on Twitter, leading to a suspension of the organization’s account. This defamatory claim was based on a misrepresentation of the facts—PV’s Twitter suspension was not for spreading misinformation, but for publishing truthful, yet supposedly private, information. Cabrera’s statement contradicted a prior CNN report which acknowledged the true reason for the suspension.

The defamation suit aimed to hold CNN accountable for these false claims that directly impacted PV’s reputation. Despite an initial unfavorable ruling from a federal judge in Georgia, who dismissed the lawsuit, O’Keefe and his legal team refused to back down.

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with O’Keefe, acknowledging that Cabrera’s statement was not only false, but materially false. The court also found that the statement had the potential to harm the reputation of Project Veritas. This ruling was a crucial step forward in the battle for truth in media, and it sent a strong message that news organizations cannot simply disregard the truth and misrepresent the facts without facing legal consequences.

Judge Ed Carnes, concurring in the decision, highlighted the absurdity of CNN’s defense, pointing out that a major news organization was essentially downplaying the importance of truth in its broadcasts. “If you stay on the bench long enough, you see a lot of things. Still, I never thought I’d see a major news organization downplaying the importance of telling the truth in its broadcasts,” said Carnes.

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Elon Musk’s X Sues California Over Deepfake Law Seen as Threat to Free Speech

Elon Musk’s X has initiated legal action against the state of California, seeking to prevent the enforcement of a new statute mandating that major online platforms either remove or label deepfake election-related content, as a violation of the First Amendment, particularly for its impact on memes and satire.

We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.

The legal challenge was presented in a federal court earlier this week, focusing on legislation designed to curb the influence of artificially altered videos, images, and sounds, collectively known as deepfakes. The legislation is poised to become effective on January 1.

The law in question, Assembly Bill 2655, was signed as part of California’s efforts to safeguard the integrity of the upcoming 2024 US presidential election from the risks posed by technological manipulation. Governor Gavin Newsom, having clashed with Musk following Musk’s sharing of a parody video of Vice President Kamala Harris, aims to mitigate these alleged risks.

The legislation has sparked concerns among tech giants and free speech supporters, who understand that it suppresses user engagement and stifles free discourse and satire under the guise of curbing misinformation.

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