A New Jersey lawsuit that seeks to hold Antifa accountable for organizing campaigns of terror and harassment against individuals is picking up steam.
In D'ambly v. Exoo, originally filed in September 2020, plaintiff Daniel D'Ambly is suing Christian Exoo (known on Twitter as "Antifash Gordon") for leading campaigns of violence and harassment to compel his employer -- the New York Daily News,-- to fire him.
The attacks on D'Ambly were due to his participation in the New Jersey European Heritage Association. Under New Jersey law, his termination was legally dubious on these grounds alone.
D'Ambly also alleges a number of other actors played a role in the violation of his rights, including Twitter -- which ignores complaints about Exoo flagrantly violating their terms of service -- and St. Lawrence University, which not only employs Exoo, but is alleged to be a site from which he organizes, recruits and trains associates for harassment campaigns with the institution's full knowledge.
Cohen, Weiss & Simon (CWS), a law firm tasked with representing D'Ambly's union in arbitration, is also a defendant in the case. According to D'Ambly's suit, lawyers at the firm told him they sympathized with Antifa and did not want to help him. Because of this prejudice, they failed to provide the relevant facts in his defense and did not professionally represent his case to the best of their abilities, leading to substantial financial loss.
The inclusion of a RICO claim could lead to a breakthrough for victims of anarchist and communist paramilitary groups, who the Department of Justice and FBI refuse to punish despite naming them as terrorists in their own assessments.
But D'Ambly isn't alone. A whopping 14 new plaintiffs have now joined the case against Exoo, according to a legal brief obtained by National Justice.
As with D'Ambly, litigants allege that Exoo has organized harassment against them, their families and their employers in a deliberate attempt to do them physical and material harm.
One individual, identified as K.R. because she is a child, was put in harm's way after a brick was thrown through the window of her family home. Her house was subjected to multiple attacks by anarchists after Exoo allegedly repeatedly doxed them and put out a public call on Twitter for his accomplices to confront her and her family.
In a separate episode, a Jewish man named Aaron Wolkind was labeled a neo-Nazi by Exoo, who then instructed followers to contact his employer. When Exoo and his enterprise failed to get Wolkind fired, they listed his company's clients and began barraging them with threats instead.
In Mark Antony Tucci's experience, Exoo doxed him on December 10th, 2018. Following the call to action featuring his employer's information -- a restaurant -- 600 threatening phone calls were made in one night, which forced them to close. The business owner acquiesced to the extortion demand and fired Tucci, but in response, the complaint quotes Exoo as saying "they're just hoping this blows over, so keep calling folks," which caused the assault to continue.
For Jobel Barbosa, Exoo alleged he was "transphobic" and organized a call-in campaign to his job that led to his firing. His wife's personal number was uploaded to the anarchist website noblog.org and Antifa members flooded her with death threats.
Many of these stories hold to a similar pattern. The victim reports their organized harassment to Twitter and the social media giant ignores them. Exoo had previously been banned by Twitter and "Antifash Gordon" is his second account, which is a clear violation of their rules and thus potentially makes them liable for enabling the Antifa enterprise.
If case goes to trial, Twitter's legal counsel, Vijaya Gadde, will be called to the stand.
All of the plaintiffs have real material damages and the law is clearly on their side from multiple angles. Even if Magistrate Jessica Allen refuses refuses to provide justice and prevents the case from move forward, it will be difficult for an appeal's court to ignore the plethora of evidence backing the plaintiffs' claims.