The Southern
Poverty Law Center, along with its Montana co-counsel, filed
suit in federal court today against
the founder of a major neo-Nazi website who orchestrated a harassment campaign
that has relentlessly terrorized a Jewish woman and her family with antisemitic
threats and messages.
The lawsuit describes how Andrew
Anglin used his web
forum, the Daily Stormer – the leading extremist website in the country – to
publish 30 articles urging his followers to launch a “troll storm” against
Tanya Gersh, a real estate agent in Whitefish, Montana. Gersh, her husband and
12-year-old son have received more than 700 harassing messages since December.
The
intimidation began after Anglin accused Gersh of attempting to extort money
from the mother of Richard
Spencer. The younger Spencer heads the National Policy Institute, a
white nationalist organization.
Anglin and
Spencer are both prominent leaders of the “alt-right”
movement that rallied white nationalists behind President Donald Trump’s
campaign.
“Andrew Anglin
knew he had an online army primed to attack with the click of a mouse,” said
SPLC President Richard Cohen. “We intend to hold him accountable for the
suffering he has caused Ms. Gersh and to send a strong message to those who use
their online platforms as weapons of intimidation.”
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District
Court for the District of Montana, Missoula Division, seeks compensatory and
punitive damages. It accuses Anglin of invading Gersh’s privacy and
intentionally inflicting emotional distress. It also outlines how his campaign
violated the Montana Anti-Intimidation Act.
“There’s no
place in Montana for the hate Andrew Anglin unleashed from the darkest corners
of the internet,” said co-counsel John Morrison, a partner with Morrison,
Sherwood, Wilson, & Deola. “The attack on Tanya Gersh was an attack on all
of us.”
Anglin, whose
website attracts hundreds of thousands of readers each month, is a key figure
in the alt-right movement, which was energized by Trump’s campaign. The day
after the election, he wrote,
“Our Glorious Leader has ascended to God Emperor. Make no mistake about it: we
did this. If it were not for us, it wouldn’t have been possible.”
Anglin also encouraged
his followers after
the election to harass Muslims and “any foreigners you see.” He wrote, “We want
these people to feel unwanted. We want them to feel that everything around them
is against them. And we want them to be afraid.”
Within the
first 10 days after the election, the SPLC documented nearly 900
bias-related incidents across
the country, many of them done in Trump’s name.
The Daily
Stormer, which has established 31 physical chapters in the United States and
more in Canada, has been designated a hate group by the SPLC. It takes its name
from the Nazi propaganda sheet known as Der
Stürmer.
Some of its
readers do more than issue threats. Dylann
Roof, who massacred nine African Americans in Charleston in 2015,
posted on the site. Thomas
Mair, the neo-Nazi assassin who last year killed Jo Cox, a British
member of Parliament, was a regular reader. And just last month, another Daily
Stormer reader, James
Jackson, was charged with murder and terrorism after carrying out a
plan to go to New York City to kill a black man at random.
The lawsuit is
similar to litigation the SPLC has used to win crushing court judgments against
10 major white supremacist organizations and 50 individuals who led them or
participated in violent acts. The legal strategy, however, has been adapted for
the digital age.
Gersh was
targeted after she agreed to help Sherry Spencer sell a commercial building she
owned in Whitefish, where both women live. There were rumors that the building
would be a target for protests around the time that a video of Richard
Spencer’s speech to a white nationalist conference in Washington, D.C., went
viral. In the video,
taken days after the 2016 election, he declares, “Hail Trump! Hail our people!
Hail victory!” as white nationalists respond with Nazi salutes.
Gersh agreed
to help sell the building after Sherry Spencer reached out to her. Anglin
launched the troll storm after Spencer changed her mind and published an
article attacking Gersh.
“Tell them you
are sickened by their Jew agenda,” Anglin wrote under the headline “Jews
Targeting Richard Spencer’s Mother for Harassment and Extortion – TAKE ACTION!”
The post included Gersh’s contact information. It also included photographs of
Gersh, her husband and son. One was altered to include a yellow Star of David
with the label “Jude” – an allusion to the emblem the Nazi regime required Jews
to wear during World War II.
Anglin
launched his campaign of harassment and intimidation with these words: “Let’s
Hit Em Up. Are y’all ready for an old fashioned Troll Storm? Because AYO – it’s
that time, fam.”
The article
prompted hundreds of threatening telephone calls, voicemails, texts, emails,
social media messages, letters and postcards. Among them:
Thanks for demonstrating why your race needs to be collectively
ovened.
You have no idea what you are doing, six million are only the
beginning.
We are going to keep track of you for the rest of your life.
You will be driven to the brink of suicide & We will be
there to take pleasure in your pain & eventual end.
One message
included an image of Gersh being sprayed with a green gas, along with the words: Hickory dickory dock, the kike ran up
the clock. The clock struck three and the Internet Nazis trolls gassed the rest
of them.
An email to
her husband read: Put
your uppity slut wife Tanya back in her cage, you rat-faced kike. … Day of the
rope soon for your entire family.
Gersh’s son
received a tweet with the image of an open oven and the message: psst kid, theres a free Xbox One
inside this oven. Anglin referred to him as a “creepy little
faggot.”
There were
also phone calls that consisted only of the sound of gunshots.
The campaign
escalated to the point that Anglin planned an armed march in Whitefish that he
threatened would end at Gersh’s home. He promoted the march, which never
materialized, with an image that superimposed Gersh, her son and two other
Jewish residents on a picture of the front gate of the Auschwitz concentration
camp.
The threats
have taken an emotional and physical toll on Gersh. She experiences panic
attacks and fears answering the phone. She often goes to bed in tears and wakes
up crying. She has trouble leaving her home and feels anxiety in crowds. She
has gained weight, has lost hair and is in physical pain. She has been
prescribed medication and has sought other treatment, including trauma therapy.
“This attack
has been one long nightmare that has changed me forever in so many ways,” Gersh
said. “No one should endure what I’ve experienced. And with the love and
support of my family and others, we will take a stand against hate.”
