Two right-wing protesters acquitted on riot charges have announced plans to sue top Portland and Multnomah County officials for $100 million for what they say was a malicious prosecution.
Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson and a supporter allege in a tort claim notice filed Tuesday that elected leaders controlling the Police Bureau and District Attorney’s Office conspired to punish them for their conservative beliefs, while routinely letting left-wing protesters off easy.
A judge threw out the felony charges against Gibson and the associate, Russell Schultz, halfway through their July trial after determining they were never physically violent during a left-versus-right brawl outside the now-defunct Cider Riot bar on May 1, 2019.
“The meritless prosecution of Mr. Schultz and Mr. Gibson — with absolutely no evidence — is an affront not just to the rights of Mr. Gibson and Mr. Schultz, but to the rights of every person who has a minority viewpoint,” said Angus Lee, the attorney who filed the notice.
Lee said he plans to file a civil rights lawsuit in federal court.
In the 18-page tort claim, Lee said Mayor Ted Wheeler, who serves as the city’s police commissioner, along with District Attorney Mike Schmidt and Schmidt’s predecessor, Rod Underhill, orchestrated the plot with three of the city’s police chiefs and other officials.
Circuit Judge Benjamin Souede pointedly rebuked the District Attorney’s Office when he dismissed the charges against Gibson and Schultz, saying he was “bewildered” the case had gone to trial.
In response, Schmidt has pointed to the guilty pleas by three other Patriot Prayer supporters, as well as the conviction of a third defendant, Mackenzie Lewis, at the trial, as evidence prosecutors would have prevailed if Gibson and Schultz’s cases had gone to the jury.
“We believe the factual distinctions between these cases were negligible,” Schmidt said previously.
The tort claim points to Wheeler’s condemnation of far-right extremism, as well as emails Schmidt exchanged with the social justice think tank Wren Collective before he was in office as evidence of bias against Patriot Prayer.
Lee claims it was highly unusual that Gibson was arrested in Washington state by U.S. marshals on the riot charge in August 2019 despite not facing federal charges and wrote that Schultz lost out on a “six-figure” position at the real estate firm CBRE because of the riot charge.
“It’s apparent that their goal was always to obtain a wrongful conviction,” Lee said.
While no one from the left-wing faction was charged during the May Day brawl at Cider Riot, police arrested nearly 1,100 people during large left-wing demonstrations in 2020 and 2021 and the District Attorney’s Office opened cases against about 200 of them, records show.
City Attorney Robert Taylor declined to comment on lawsuit notice. The county confirmed it had received the tort claim but declined further comment.
