Conservative journalist Andy Ngo is taking the fight to Antifa by dragging two members of the violent leftist organization to court. He is seeking almost $1 million in damages from an alleged attack three years ago.
The influential reporter filed the legal action in Portland in 2020 alleging a violent assault that resulted in injuries. According to reports, Ngo suffered a torn earlobe and a brain bleed in the attack.
There has already been a positive outcome in his case against three Antifa members as a judge found them “in default” in the case.
In 2020, I filed a lawsuit with the help of @Liberty_Ctr against the alleged antifa militants who attacked me. You might remember some of those violent incidents were caught on camera. Continue reading for updates on this important lawsuit. https://t.co/TllZ7KD7ye pic.twitter.com/vjU1N3OvxF
— Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) July 16, 2023
The liability of Corbyn Katherine Belyea, Madison Lee Allen and Joseph Christian Evans will be decided at a later date.
An agreement was reached with another respondent recently, and Ngo announced on Sunday that the potential defendant would not be part of the jury trial. That alleged Antifa member, Benjamin Patrick Bolen, previously bashed the journalist for his coverage of the group.
In 2020, he told the court that Ngo engages in “terrorism” for his reporting on the violent organization.
Bolen charged that Ngo “embeds” with a group and films “while they instigate a skirmish or physical confrontation.” He alleged that the journalist then “deceptively edits to further his agenda.”
A motion to strike these and other statements from the trial record was granted by a Portland judge.
Ngo is frequently targeted by leftist radicals for his efforts to expose the truly violent nature of Antifa radicals. Another alleged attacker, John Colin Hacker, was charged with third-degree robbery in 2021 after being accused of taking the reporter’s cellphone.
Hacker’s attorney, Michelle Burrows, recently remarked to the judge that Ngo has endured “really terrible things” in violent encounters with Antifa mobs. She denied, however, that Hacker was responsible for the attacks.
Burrows further referenced what she termed Ngo’s “inciting language [and] things he does to gin up the crowds.” It is almost as if she blamed him for the alleged attacks he withstood.
There have been attempts by lawyers for Antifa members to inject Ngo’s conservative politics into the proceedings. This was flatly rejected by his attorney, Greg Michael, who argued that his beliefs have “absolutely no bearing on this, or any proceedings currently coming before the court.”
In a sign of the threat to the plaintiff, Judge Rima Ghandour issued a protective order for Ngo last week in a pre-trial hearing.
