Lawsuit targets neo-Nazi 'troll storm' against Jewish family
GREAT FALLS, Mont. — A federal lawsuit alleges the prominent head of a neo-Nazi alt-right group spurred white nationalist fanatics into an anti-Semitic "troll storm" that sent droves of hate-related messages and death threats to a Jewish woman and her 12-year-old son.
The lawsuit claims Andrew Anglin, publisher of the Daily Stormer neo-Nazi website with hundreds of thousands of visitors a month, provoked legions of his followers to send a "tsunami of threats" to Tanya Gersh and her relatives. Gersh is a Montana real-estate agent who fell out of favor with the mother of Richard B. Spencer, considered by many to be the founder of the alt-right movement.
Anglin is accused in court papers of invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and violations of the federal anti-intimidation act.
"Mr. Anglin turned his horde of anti-Semitic fanatics loose on Ms. Gersh in a series of Daily Stormer articles," according to the lawsuit, co-filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center civil-rights advocacy group. "These articles caused his followers to overwhelm Ms. Gersh with hundreds of hateful and threatening anti-Semitic phone calls, voicemails, text messages, emails, letters, social media comments, and false online business reviews."
The campaign against Gersh began in December 2016 when Anglin wrote an article that urged "Let's hit-em up! Are y'all ready for an old-fashioned troll storm? Because AYO (hey you) — it's that time, fam."
Anglin provided phone numbers, email addresses and links to social media profiles for Gersh, her son, friends and colleagues, and he told his minions to "Tell them you are sickened by their Jew agenda," according to the lawsuit. Anglin's postings 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, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
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. The family also received phone calls that contained only the sound of gunshots, the law center said.
The campaign escalated to the point that Anglin planned an armed march in Montana that he threatened would end at Gersh’s home, the lawsuit said. 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.
"There’s no place in Montana for the hate Andrew Anglin unleashed from the darkest corners of the Internet," plaintiff's lawyer John Morrison said. "The attack on Tanya Gersh was an attack on all of us."
An email to Anglin was not immediately returned.
A monetary figure has not been attached to the suit although Gersh hopes to win at least $225,000 for three of the four counts asserted in the complaint.
Anglin’s initial article asking his followers to “take action” was in apparent retaliation to a real-estate squabble between Gersh and Whitefish, Mont., business owner Sherry Spencer, the mother of Richard Spencer. Whitefish residents' "discontent with the Spencer family had been simmering for years and reached a fever pitch" recently, according to the lawsuit.
Some residents of Whitefish, a city of about 6,700 people 25 miles from the west entrance to Glacier National Park, considered protesting in front of a mixed-use commercial building that Sherry Spencer owns in town.
Talk of boycotting Sherry Spencer’s business quickly circulated through Whitefish and surrounding communities, leading to a conversation between her and Gersh regarding Sherry Spencer's business, the lawsuit states. Gersh suggested that the businesswoman make a donation as a public sign of goodwill and disavowal of her son’s beliefs.
Sherry Spencer also asked Gersh for help drafting a statement about its sale, according to the lawsuit.
After further discussion, Gersh and Sherry Spencer decided Gersh would not be a part of the sale and, according to the civil complaint, this was the final communication between the two.
About two weeks later, on Dec. 15, Sherry Spencer published a post on Medium, in which she described the interaction as threatening on Gersh’s part. She painted Gersh as an agent of human-rights organizations such as Love Lives Here and the Montana Human Rights Network.
“I had no intention of selling ... until I started receiving terrible threats in the last couple of weeks,” Sherry Spencer wrote, referring to alleged threats from Gersh.
The next day, Anglin’s post appeared on the Daily Stormer, accusing Gersh of “extorting” Sherry Spencer and initiating a hailstorm of anti-Semitism against Gersh and Whitefish's Jewish community.
“Andrew Anglin and his troll army have attacked me and my family to the very core of who we are and the very essence of what we stand for,” Gersh said.
She said she no longer is working, is in trauma therapy, is losing her hair, goes to sleep crying and has anxiety.
Morrison complimented Gersh for having the courage to file the lawsuit.
“It was a very brave thing to do, and I am proud of her as a friend,” he said.
The news from Whitefish reverberated throughout the state as Gov. Steve Bullock released a letter Dec. 23 calling for all Montanans to stand united against hate in wake of the incidents.
“We will not tolerate hate and intimidation of any kind. Not now. Not ever,” he wrote. “So I ask you — as governor, as a husband, and as a father of three young children — to join me and build on and protect the Montana we know and love.”
In a Dec. 27 post on Medium, a panel of high-ranking and bipartisan officials from Montana made a more pointed declaration against Anglin and the neo-Nazi blog in a post titled “Standing Together.” The post ended with the names of Montana senators Jon Tester and Steve Daines, then-Congressman Ryan Zinke, Attorney General Tim Fox and Gov. Bullock.
Follow Phil Drake and Seaborn Larson on Twitter: @GFTrib_PDrake and @GFTrib_Seaborn