A federal judge ruled Friday that the founder of a prominent neo-Nazi website must return to the U.S. for questioning in a lawsuit accusing him of fomenting harassment, according to The Associated Press.
Andrew Anglin, founder of the Daily Stormer, has claimed traveling to the U.S. would put him in danger. Magistrate Judge Jeremiah Lynch ruled there was no factual basis for this claim and that Anglin was not eligible for a protective order protecting him from deposition.
{mosads}In a 2017 lawsuit, Montana real estate agent Tanya Gersh claimed Anglin published her personal information, including photos of her 12-year-old son, leading to a flurry of anonymous anti-Semitic harassment in retaliation for a dispute with the mother of white nationalist Richard Spencer.
Anglin is from Ohio but claims he receives too many death threats to disclose his whereabouts and has not been to the U.S. since 2012. He claims to have moved to Cambodia after Gersh filed her lawsuit. His attorneys have argued in favor of him being allowed to record a deposition.
“Since the outset of this case, [Anglin] has displayed a pattern of disregard for the authority of this Court and the seriousness of these proceedings,” Gersh’s lawyers said in a court filing, according to the AP.
Marc Randazza, one of Anglin’s attorneys, said Anglin will accept a default judgment rather than return to the U.S. “The end result of that will be that the [Southern Poverty Law Center] will get a piece of paper, my client will pay nothing and there won’t even be a decision on the legal merits, at least clarifying the law. Everyone loses,” Randazza said, according to the AP.
In December, Oregon resident Evan James McCarty was ordered by a court to renounce white supremacy after Anglin orchestrated a similar harassment campaign against Taylor Dumpson, the first black woman elected student government president at American University. Dumpson still has a lawsuit pending against Anglin.