Andrew Anglin operates a neo-Nazi website notorious for publishing personal information about the targets of its internet trolling campaigns. But The Daily Stormer’s publisher refused this week to publicly reveal where he is living, claiming he gets “credible” death threats.
FILE – In this undated file photo released by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Tanya Gersh poses for a photo. The publisher of a notorious neo-Nazi website, Andrew Anglin won’t publicly reveal where he’s living, claiming he gets “credible” death threats. Anglin says he moved to Cambodia four days before Montana real estate agent Tanya Gersh sued him, accusing him of invading her privacy, intentionally inflicting “emotional distress” and violating a Montana anti-intimidation law. (Dan Chung/Southern Poverty Law Center via AP, File)
Anglin’s whereabouts are a key issue in a federal lawsuit that accuses him of using his site to orchestrate an anti-Semitic trolling campaign against a Montana family.
In a sworn statement filed in court Wednesday, Anglin says he moved to Cambodia last year after living in Greece and still resides outside the U.S. Anglin says he moved to Cambodia four days before Montana real estate agent Tanya Gersh sued him last April, accusing him of invading her privacy, intentionally inflicting “emotional distress” and violating a Montana anti-intimidation law.
Anglin’s attorneys have argued the court doesn’t have jurisdiction over the case — and therefore must dismiss it — because Anglin is “not a citizen of any state.”
Gersh’s lawyers reject that argument as baseless and accuse Anglin of playing a “childish game of hide-and-seek” to avoid the legal consequences for his actions.
Anglin is an Ohio native who has used an Ohio post office box to collect donations for his site, which takes its name from Der Stürmer, a newspaper that published Nazi propaganda. The site has struggled to stay online since Anglin published a post mocking a woman killed in a deadly car attack at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August.
Anglin’s sworn statement, which includes photos of stamps on his passport, says he left Ohio and the U.S. “for the last time” in July 2013 and hasn’t returned since. It says he moved to Greece in 2013 and worked as a tour guide for a youth hostel in Athens before he moved to Cambodia in April, living at a hotel in Siem Reap, a resort town.
Anglin said he has temporarily left Cambodia but cannot, “for reasons of personal safety,” publicly disclose his current whereabouts. But he said he is willing to privately provide that information to the court.
Anglin’s statement mentions “the ‘punch a Nazi’ movement” and a viral video that showed white nationalist Richard Spencer getting punched in the head by a masked man during an interview on a Washington street corner.
“As publisher of the Daily Stormer, however, I am targeted for more severe injury, including credible death threats,” he said in his statement.
Gersh’s suit says her family received a barrage of threatening and harassing emails, phone calls and other messages after Anglin published their personal information, including her 12-year-old son’s Twitter handle and photo. In a string of posts that began December 2016, Anglin accused Gersh and other Jewish residents of Whitefish, Montana, of engaging in an “extortion racket” against Richard Spencer’s mother.
Gersh’s lawsuit said she agreed to help Spencer’s mother sell commercial property she owns in Whitefish amid talk of a protest outside the building. Sherry Spencer, however, later accused Gersh of threatening and harassing her into agreeing to sell the property.
One of Anglin’s articles about Gersh urged readers to “take action” against her and other Jewish residents of Whitefish, posting their telephone numbers, email addresses and Twitter handles.
“And hey – if you’re in the area, maybe you should stop by and tell her in person what you think of her actions,” he added.
Anglin’s lawyers argue he had a constitutional right to express his “political speech” about Gersh. Her attorneys argue the First Amendment doesn’t protect his “coordinated, online attack” on her family.
Months passed before Anglin’s lawyers formally responded to the suit. Jeffrey Cremeans, a process server hired by Gersh’s attorneys from the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, said in a sworn affidavit that he was shopping at a grocery store in a Columbus, Ohio, suburb on Dec. 10 when he saw a man who strongly resembles Anglin at a self-checkout register.
Anglin denies being in the U.S. on that day.
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
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