OPENING BRIEF FILED IN APPEAL OF DISMISSAL OF SPLC LAWSUIT

On February 14, 2020, I filed an initial brief in my appeal of Judge Blake’s dismissal of my complaint against Heidi Beirich, Mark Potok, and the SPLC. I am targeting a number of apparent deficiencies in the district court’s decision. Included among these arguments are that:

• the court failed to consider that the SPLC defendants had unlawfully, and not innocently, acquired the documents they used to leak my identity;
• the court’s cursory dismissal of my RICO claims were improper as they ignored the detailed allegations I presented regarding the SPLC’s criminal actions; and
• the court erred in dismissing my defamation claims on the basis that the SPLC’s statements were mere opinion, where the SPLC had leveled accusations that I was a “neo-Nazi” and had “infiltrated” the Baltimore City government. Such accusations cannot be dismissed as mere hyperbole and opinion, however, when leveled by an organization such as the SPLC, which touts itself as “the nation’s leading source for reliable analysis of the radical right.”