Former Berkeley CR prez sues Antifa activist for $100K
The former president of the Berkeley College Republicans has sued known Antifa activist Yvette Felarca after a “frivolous” restraining she had filed against him was dropped.
“Felarca’s frivolous legal actions were meant to intimidate me and hinder my political activism, but also prevented me from going to class on occasion. I can now go on with my main purpose at UC Berkeley, which is to get an education and exercise my free speech rights without interference,” Troy Worden told Campus Reform after both a temporary and permanent restraining order were dismissed.
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Now, Worden and his attorney, Mark Meuser, have announced in a press release that they will be seeking more than $100,000 in damages from Felarca, noting that the restraining orders were an attempt to restrict Worden’s First Amendment rights.
“Felarca filed a frivolous restraining order that restricted Worden’s First and Second Amendment rights, and made it difficult for him to move around the campus to attend classes,” the press release contends, with Meuser suggesting that “Felarca and her attorney attempted to make free speech expensive and it is time that they pay for their misuse of the court system.”
“I am glad that we are no longer playing defense and that we are finally going after BAMN [By Any Means Necessary] for filing this frivolous action,” Worden added.
Notably, the lawsuit also targets Felarca’s attorney, Shanta Driver, who is the National Chair and founder of BAMN, an Antifa-affiliated organization.
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Given Driver’s credentials, the press release argues that she “should have known that the motion was frivolous and that it was brought for the improper purpose of restricting Worden’s rights.”
Harmeet Dhillon, managing partner of the Dhillon Law Group, where Meuser is currently representing Worden, commented that her firm “is proud that we could help level the playing field and turn the tables.”
“This case represented a massive imbalance in power in that we had a poor college student about to lose his constitutional rights because a massive organization had the resources to crush him in court,” she added.
As Dhillon hinted at, Worden resorted to launching a legal defense fund to help raise the necessary funds to acquire “the resources to fight these malicious, false, and reprehensible accusations.”
[RELATED: Conservative Berkeley student stalked, threatened by Antifa]
Felarca has had previous encounters with the law, and is currently out on bail for charges of assault, resisting arrest, and inciting a riot, though her new attorney Ronald Cruz continues to claim Worden “is a stalker.”
“This motion is his attempt to use the courts to continue stalking Ms. Felarca,” Cruz told the East Bay Times. “The First Amendment does not give Worden the right to stalk people, or to violate a restraining order and be in Felarca’s face and take video of her for 30 minutes, which Worden did after the court commanded him to stay away.”
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