The charges requested are disrupting public service, inducing panic, making false alarms and telecommunications harassment. Walters said in the filing that “the criminal charges are warranted for the violated statutes due to the fear, induced panic, recklessness, carelessness, and the financial burden that has impacted the community.”
Under Ohio law, a private citizen seeking to “cause an arrest or prosecution” can file an affidavit with “a reviewing official” — a judge, prosecuting attorney or magistrate — to have them review the facts and decide if a complaint should be filed. A similar affidavit was recently filed against Donald Trump and JD Vance.
On Sept. 5, Lee made a post in a local Facebook group with the title “Warning to all about our beloved pets and those around us,” claiming that a neighbor’s daughter’s friend had lost her cat and later found it hanging from a branch at a Haitian neighbor’s home, being carved up to be eaten.
The court memorandum alleges that posting “a baseless claim recklessly without evidence that an action occurred that caused fear, panic, and financial burden when others acted on the baseless claims, justifies an act of inducing panic.”
According to the filing, the court cannot reject the complaint without first affording Walters a hearing for it to determine probable cause.
Walters wrote in the filing that a lack of response or action by the prosecuting attorney “is telling,” and that the impact of Lee’s post to the city, including its Haitian and non-Haitian residents “cannot be ignored or overstated.”
Credit: Bill Lackey
Credit: Bill Lackey
Lee’s post went viral, with the claims reaching former President Trump and his running mate Sen. JD Vance, who then amplified them. The Republican politicians are facing similar citizen-initiated charges by the Haitian Bridge Alliance.
How does court process work?
Municipal Clerk of Courts Sheila (Rice) Henry, told the News-Sun that the court has never had special cases of this nature before, and staff, as well as administrative Judge Valerie Wilt, are following the law to the letter. She said Wilt, who was assigned the Trump/Vance case, immediately started studying it when it was assigned to her.
Henry said if an arrest warrant is necessary — they have been requested for both Trump/Vance and Lee — the court will file one.
In the Trump/Vance case, Wilt made an en banc ruling, meaning that all three Municipal Court judges have to review and decide upon the case. According to a court filing, the case “presents an issue of importance and significant public interest.”
A timeline for the cases is not yet clear, Henry said.
After the Facebook post
Since Springfield gained national attention, hospitals, government buildings, schools and businesses have been subject to more than 30 bomb threats, which led Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine to bring the Ohio State Highway Patrol to Springfield schools to sweep for threats daily, as well as other security measures throughout the community.
Walters said they and their family are seeking an arrest warrant for Lee for:
- Disrupted public services, which the court filings says caused “widespread bomb and other threats that resulted in massive disruptions to the public services in Springfield, Ohio;”
- False alarms and induced panic, “by knowingly causing alarm in the Springfield, Ohio community by using social media to post baseless claims that were not true at the time of the posting;”
- Telecommunications harassment, “by spreading claims they know to be false on social media by later making a statement via the news media that no evidence of the allegations were present at the time of the social media post.”
According to an affidavit, Walters “experienced fear in my community” after the post “led to high tensions and threats in the community.”
The News-Sun has been unable to reach Lee, but she and her neighbor Kimberly Newton spoke to misinformation tracking outlet NewsGuard last month.
According to NewsGuard, Newton “explained to NewsGuard that the cat owner was ‘an acquaintance of a friend’ and that she heard about the supposed incident from that friend, who, in turn, learned about it from ‘a source that she had.’ Newton added: ‘I don’t have any proof.’”
NewsGuard tracked how allegations from the now-deleted post — based on a third- or fourth-hand rumor with no evidence — went from a private Facebook group to being shared by conservative social media influencers, to being shared by Vance, to being repeated by Trump in a presidential debate.
Lee said in a separate interview with NBC News that while she has concerns about the impact on Springfield from the sudden population increase from Haitian immigration, she did not intend to villainize the Haitian community.
“I feel for the Haitian community,” she told NBC News. “If I was in the Haitians’ position, I’d be terrified, too, worried that somebody’s going to come after me because they think I’m hurting something that they love ... again, that’s not what I was trying to do.”
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