Judge Rejects Marc Randazza’s Arguments in Failed Neo-Nazi First Amendment Free Speech Case

Source: Columnist24

Randazza LOST the Neo-Nazi First Amendment Case

It seems like the court is not too impressed with attorney Marc Randazza, in the neo-Nazi case in which Marc Randazza is involved. The attorney styles himself as a First Amendment lawyer or “protector of free speech.”

A federal judge has ruled in an SPLC lawsuit that neo-Nazi leader Andrew Anglin, who was defended by corrupt attorney Marc Randazza, must pay more than $14 million in damages for using his website to launch an antisemitic campaign of terror against a Jewish woman and her family.

Neo-Nazi Anglin was represented by “tainted” Randazza, who had previously been fired by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. HuffPost writes that “outrageous” Randazza is “curiously chummy” with fascists and racists. Randazza has also represented several Neo-Nazis in court, including Andrew Anglin, who published the address of a Jewish realtor on the Nazi website The Daily Stormer.

Randazza chose to defend neo-Nazi Anglin, who targeted a Jewish family, the Gershes, online. According to the Washington Post, “Anglin himself posted an image with Gersh and her son’s face superimposed on a photograph of the Auschwitz concentration camp.”

Chief Judge Dana L. Christensen, of the U.S. District Court in Missoula, Montana, wrote that “Anglin exploited the prejudices widely held among his readers to specifically target one individual.”

Randazza withdrew after Anglin refused to show up. Randazza said he and two other attorneys will “vigorously” represent Anglin while they still are enrolled as his lawyers. “But there’s not much I can do in this situation but withdraw,” Randazza said. Yet, the judge wrote, “Anyone can look at the history of this group and reach the same very obvious conclusion.”.

The Judges Are Not Impressed by Randazza Legal Argument

So it seems. Luke O’Brien from HuffPost wrote: “If nothing else, Randazza and Anglin made a fitting Mutt-and-Jeff courthouse combo as the Gersh case devolved into farce thanks to their trollish antics. For almost a year, Anglin evaded process servers while Randazza unsuccessfully argued that his client existed beyond the court’s jurisdiction as a “stateless” citizen. He told the court that Anglin, who was involved in preparations for the deadly white supremacist riot in Charlottesville, Virginia, hadn’t set foot in the U.S. since 2012, despite Anglin admitting on the Daily Stormer to being in his hometown of Columbus in 2017 to expunge a misdemeanor drug conviction from his record. Randazza suggested that Anglin was in Nigeria, Russia, the Philippines, Greece, Cambodia. He offered up incomplete images of Anglin’s passport as evidence. None of it worked.

In a more sinister turn, the attorney also trotted out Holocaust denial as a legal defense, arguing, essentially, that if Anglin didn’t believe the Nazis gassed Jews during World War II, then his followers’ threats to gas Gersh and her family shouldn’t be taken seriously.

But the pair’s primary defense all along was to argue that everything Anglin published on his site ― including contact information for Gersh and her family, instructions on how to harass her, and sample content his followers could use to harass her ― was protected speech. After a judge shot down that argument in November, Randazza and Anglin resorted to desperate-looking stalling and dodging tactics. Anglin, for instance, proposed doing the Gersh deposition in Cuba or Venezuela, a proposition that even Randazza, who did not comment for this story, said he was unprepared to “vigorously defend.”

Credits: HUFFPOST / INFOWARS

Randazza Failed to Persuade the Court

Luke O’Brien from the Huffpost continues: “Randazza absurdly likened his neo-Nazi client to Thomas Paine and tried to persuade the court that Anglin, a propagandist and serial harasser who routinely libels journalists and celebrates violence against the press, was himself a journalist and, therefore, protected by a Montana shield law from revealing the identities of his followers who anonymously threatened Gersh and continue to menace targets of Anglin’s choosing.

Anglin, for example, recently dispatched his trolls to harass a man who runs a packaging company in Charlottesville and had apparently sent Anglin an email encouraging the neo-Nazi to remain in “whatever fascist rat hole” in which he’s hiding. Anglin’s trolls downvoted the packaging company on its Google reviews page and left scores of bogus, bigoted write-ups. The neo-Nazi also showed HuffPost evidence that he took part in the trolling campaign.”

Randazza Can’t Be An Effective Free Speech Defender With His Unethical Behavior

Endless Bar complaints against Marc Randazza filled in every State he’s still licensed: MA, NV, CA, FL AR. Randazza was “suspended from the practice of trademark and other non-patent law before the United States Patent and Trademark Office”.

It seems like Marc Randazza’s background and experience is mainly with the porn industry, sites they may be considered as “extortion”, neo-Nazi and he even advocated child pornography.

It can be claimed that Randazza’s language and style is that of the clients and industry he represents, those that are much less appreciated in our global society. Therefore, Randazza is far from being a legitimate First Amendment representative.

Randazza does not seem to be able to defend what he deems “free speech.” He could not defend Alex Jones because the judge deemed him “tainted.” He failed to defend Anglin because the judge called Anglin’s actions as indefensible according to the First Amendment.

But “rude” Randazza was so bad that even conspiracy theorist Alex Jones had to fire him. The InfoWars founder was told by a Connecticut judge that Randazza was “tainted.” The same judge accused Randazza of “serious misconduct.” In addition, Randazza lied while filing claims for Jones in the state of Connecticut, where he was not licensed to practice.

Extreme Caution to Corrupt Attorney Marc Randazza Representing Dwight Schar & Bella Collina

Marc Randazza is probably one of the most corrupt attorneys in America. Randazza is so corrupt that Avvo, a legal online registry, issued the lowest rating possible of 1 out of 10 and marked Randazza’s profile with a warning “Extreme Caution”. One can easily assume that the reviews are fake and intended to only cover up the endless Bar complaints against Randazza in all states where he sells his legal work. If that is not enough, it seems that even the UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE has suspended Marc Randanzza.

Marc J. Randazza (“Respondent”) is hereby suspended from the practice of trademark and other non-patent law before the United States Patent and Trademark Office”.

Randazza Pleads Guilty To a Bribe and a Shaddy Loan

The State Bar of Nevada sued for the suspension of Randazza’s license in 2018 with violations of ethics. His license was suspended for a year. However, the State Bar did not put the suspension into effect.

Randazza actually pleaded guilty to two violations: a bribe and a shady loan. He appealed his suspension to the Nevada Supreme Court, but was rejected.

Randazza also conducted himself in a racist fashion. Apparently, he threw around slurs at people when he worked in the porn industry. When he was approached about his racial language, Randazza accused other people of being racist towards him.

Randazza LOST the Neo-Nazi First Amendment Case

Not The First Time Randazza Quits

Luke O’Brien writes: “This is not the first time Randazza has slunk away from his legal wreckage ― last year, he withdrew from a case after he and a client made numerous misrepresentations in Utah federal court that led to his client being sanctioned. This breakup, though, is different. For a time, Randazza and Anglin were pals subverting the system together. But Anglin was always too far gone, a conspiratorial loon raving about Jewish cabalism, his hatred of America and his desire to see the brains of his enemies splattered on walls.

“He has gotten far more radical,” Randazza told HuffPost in March.”

Is Randazza Suppressing Free Speech Against The First Amendment?!

Originally Marc Randazza was a porn attorney who then started to style himself a free speech lawyer. Yet, he has no problem with creating false copyright notices to take down another’s free expression. A copyright takedown notice was sent from Randazza’s legal firm to a publisher with a complaint that a picture of the writer’s house had been “copied onto your servers without permission.” However, the picture was literally of a building that belonged to the writer of the piece. Schar, Bella Collina, and its associates do not own the house in question. Don Juravin and his family own that house.

Instead, Randazza prefers to defend child pornography and public masturbation.

In some pieces written for humor/legal blog Popehat, Randazza made the advocated in an argument for legalizing child pornography. “I am going to make the case for legalization of child pornography,” he wrote. He argued that photos of babies in bathtubs, pictures of girlfriends, and children in bathing suits could be classified as child pornography. Randazza even admitted, “I expect to have this very post used against me in the future.”

He also suggested in the blog that public masturbation could be considered freedom of speech. “I think that the Gatewood decision leaves the question open as to whether you might be able to beat off in public there because you ‘fucking hate Portland,’” he wrote.

One emailer wrote: ““You are a disgusting, vile Jew … This is OUR country: you’re merely living here (for now).”

A caller said: “You should have died in the Holocaust with the rest of your people.”

But the calls that most disturbed Tanya Gersh consisted only of the sound of gunshots being fired.

The terror campaign — known as a “troll storm” — was the result of Daily Stormer publisher Andrew Anglin’s December 2016 directive, urging hundreds of thousands of readers to harass the Jewish woman and her family, according to court filings.

Gersh sued the known neo-Nazi. On Wednesday, a Montana federal judge denied Anglin’s motion to dismiss the case, holding that speech in encouraging anti-Semitic harassment was not entitled to First Amendment protection.

The Montana mother found herself in Anglin’s crosshairs in late 2016, after Richard Spencer, a household name in the alt-right movement, gained notoriety when a video of him shouting “Hail Trump!” at a conference of nearly 300 white nationalists — and the Nazi salutes it elicited — went viral.

Spencer’s mother, Sherry Spencer, owned a ski home in the otherwise idyllic town of Whitefish, Mont. After facing local protests related to her son’s views, she reached out to Gersh, who in 2016 worked as a real estate agent, about selling the property.

Subsequently, court filings allege, Sherry Spencer decided not to sell. Months later, she published a blog post on Medium, accusing Gersh of extortion, threats and denouncing her son’s views.

The next day, Anglin called his own readers to action.

“Are y’all ready for an old fashioned Troll Storm?” Anglin wrote in a Dec. 16, 2016, post on the Daily Stormer website. The article, titled “Jews Targeting Richard Spencer’s Mother for Harassment and Extortion — TAKE ACTION!,” was the first of 30 about Gersh on the neo-Nazi site.

Anglin also relayed a set of instructions: “Just make your opinions known. Tell them you are sickened by their Jew agenda.”

To assist his white nationalist reader “fam,” Anglin doxed Gersh, her family and friends, publishing their personal contact information online, including phone numbers and email addresses.

Southern Poverty Law Center attorney J. Richard Cohen, who filed the suit on Gersh’s behalf, told The Washington Post, “In the old days, maybe the Klan would burn a cross on your lawn to intimidate you. Nowadays neo-Nazis have other ways to harass and intimidate.”

Gersh immediately began receiving hundreds of violent and hate-filled phone calls, emails, voice mails, texts and social media posts. There were death threats, and messages that threatened to drive her to the brink of suicide.

Anglin and his followers even targeted Gersh’s 12-year-old son. According to attorney David Dinielli, also of the SPLC, one Twitter user suggested the child look inside an oven for a free Xbox — a reference to the gas chambers used during the Holocaust in Nazi death camps. Anglin himself posted an image with Gersh and her son’s face superimposed on a photograph of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Court documents note that by spring 2017, the family had received more than 700 violent and threatening communications.

“The trollers used every route to terrorize [Gersh],” Dinielli told The Post, calling it “intrusion into seclusion.” “She had to erase her presence on the Internet and entirely retreat from her life.”

In his court filings, Anglin argued that the First Amendment protects his posts on the Daily Stormer and that he could not be held responsible for his readers’ actions.

Chief Judge Dana L. Christensen, of the U.S. District Court in Missoula, Mont., disagreed.

Christensen’s decision noted that Anglin’s attack on Gersh was not to inform the public about a matter of public concern. More, the evidence seemed to show that the publisher goaded his readers, anticipating their reaction to his call to arms.

“Anglin did not use speech about Gersh to raise awareness for issues consonant with the alt-right agenda,” Christensen said in his written opinion. Instead, Anglin drew on “his readers’ hatred and fear of Jews, rousing their political sympathies.” He called for “confrontation” and “action.”

Christensen said, “Anglin exploited the prejudices widely held among his readers to specifically target one individual.”

Marc Randazza, Anglin’s attorney, declined to speak with The Post, though the New York Times reported that he called Christensen’s decision dangerous for free speech.

Wednesday’s decision does not end the case, which will proceed to discovery and trial phases. Gersh’s lawyers still must prove that Anglin is liable for invasion of privacy, among other claims.

“There is no First Amendment right to call upon hundreds of thousands of readers to launch a public attack on a private individual with the intent of ruining her life. That’s simply not something that our Constitution protects,” attorney Dinielli said.

Successful litigation could offer an avenue of recourse — though a time-consuming and costly one — for victims of online harassment and trolling.

Hiding behind a keyboard is an insufficient mask, Dinielli said. “We’ll find you and the courts will hold you accountable.”