Andrew Anglin at a rally of a Greek nationalist movement in an undated photograph. Image by Southern Poverty Law Center

By Ari Feldman December 5, 2017

Lawyers for a prominent neo-Nazi are arguing that his call for a “troll storm” of threats against a Jewish woman in Montana is protected as free speech, the Washington Post reported.

Andrew Anglin, founder of the neo-Nazi site The Daily Stormer, asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit against him brought by Tanya Gersh. Anglin published Gersh’s contact information and address on his site in May and urged his readers to call her and threaten her.

“If a local business were discriminating against black customers, the NAACP can exhort its members to send correspondence to it,” Anglin’s legal team wrote in a court brief. “And, conversely, the KKK can ask its members to send letters of protest to an establishment that treats all races equally.”

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The Montana state supreme court has held that the constitution does not protect any “right to cause substantial emotional distress by harassment or intimidation.”

As a result of Anglin’s own exhortation, Gersh and her family received numerous death threats. One person photoshopped an image of her son being crushed by a truck with a swastika on it.

“Overnight, my life was stolen from me,” Gersh told the post in the spring, when the threats were made.

Contact Ari Feldman at [email protected] or on Twitter @aefeldman

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