Judge agrees with $14 million settlement in Whitefish neo-Nazi case

U.S. District Judge Dana L. Christensen on Thursday adopted a federal magistrate judge’s recommendation that Andrew Anglin, publisher of the neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer, must pay more than $14 million in damages to Tanya Gersh of Whitefish, who received a relentless barrage of antisemitic threats and messages via an online troll storm from Anglin and his followers.

Christensen’s ruling adopts a recent recommendation from Federal Magistrate Judge Jeremiah Lynch, which means Anglin must now pay $10 million for punitive damages and more than $4 million for actual damages as recommended by Lynch, according to a press release from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“By adopting Judge Lynch’s recommendation, Judge Christensen today made clear that this type of conduct will not be tolerated and that those who engage in it will have to pay up,” David Dinielli, deputy legal director of the Law Center, said in a press release. “We will go to the ends of the earth to collect the judgment on behalf of our client, Tanya Gersh, whether it’s cash, assets or intellectual property.”

Gersh said in a prepared statement the ruling is a victory against hatred.

“This win isn’t just for me, my family and my community; this is a win for everyone who has been harassed, terrorized and bullied,” Gersh said in the release. “With the strong support of my family, the Whitefish community, the people of Montana and the Jewish community around the world, I had the strength to stand up and fight against Andrew Anglin and I defeated him and his hatred. Even though I don’t like to admit that what he did broke a part of me, I am now a stronger person for it. Don’t be afraid to take a stand against hatred and don’t let hateful people define who you are. We will not let them win.”

In the order, Christensen stated, “Having reviewed the Findings and Recommendation (Doc. 211), the Court finds no clear error. Default judgment is an appropriate sanction for Anglin’ s absolute refusal to defend.”

Gersh sued Anglin in 2017 after he published a post in 2016 calling for an “old fashioned troll storm” and posted the personal information of Gersh and others whom Anglin accused of “extorting” the mother of white nationalist Richard Spencer.

Gersh’s lawsuit described how Anglin used his online forum to publish 30 articles urging his followers to launch a “troll storm” against Gersh, a real estate agent. Gersh, her husband, Judah, and their son, who was 12 at the time, received more than 700 harassing messages. The Gershes, who are Jewish, have another son who was targeted to a lesser degree.

The intimidation began in 2016 after Anglin accused Gersh of attempting to extort money from Sherry Spencer, the mother of Richard Spencer, a well-known white nationalist.

According to earlier Daily Inter Lake articles, there were rumors that a building Sherry Spencer owned in Whitefish would be a target for protests around the time that a video of Richard Spencer’s speech to a white nationalist conference in Washington, D.C., went viral. In the video, taken days after the 2016 election, he declares, “Hail Trump! Hail our people! Hail victory!” as white nationalists respond with Nazi salutes.

Gersh was targeted after she agreed to help Sherry Spencer sell her commercial building on Lupfer Avenue in Whitefish. Sherry Spencer called Gersh on Dec. 1, 2016, asking “What do I do?” and “How should I handle this?” as rumors of protests at Spencer’s building circulated. When Spencer wanted to proceed independently with selling her building, Gersh responded, saying that was the right decision and empathizing with Spencer’s predicament.

Anglin launched the troll storm after Spencer apparently changed her mind and published an online blog post accusing Gersh of threatening and harassing her into agreeing to sell the commercial building. According to the complaint, “on information and belief, the blog post was ghostwritten by Ms. Spencer’s son, Richard Spencer.”

Gersh said in her lawsuit that among the hundreds of harassing messages from Anglin’s followers was one that was just a recording of gun shots. Another message for her 12-year-old son told him to look inside an oven for a free video game console, a reference to a method that Nazis used to kill Jews during the Holocaust.

To learn more about this case, visit https://www.splcenter.org/seeking-justice/case-docket/tanya-gersh-v-andrew-anglin