A New York City trial court judge ruled Thursday that the out-of-state creators of the controversial immigration restriction website VDARE.com were in contempt of a judicial order requiring them to comply with the state attorney general’s investigative subpoena. was lowered.
State Supreme Court Judge Sabrina Kraus sentenced Attorney General Letitia James’ office to $43,500, increased the VDARE Foundation’s daily fine to $1,000, and ordered VDARE to release all unredacted documents. was ordered to be submitted within seven days.
The trial court had ordered West Virginia-based VDARE Foundation to comply with a January 2023 investigative subpoena.
After announcing in 2020 that her office would crack down on organizations that spread hate speech on social media, Ms. James ordered documents related to VDARE’s governance, financial transactions, and regulatory disclosures through a June 2022 subpoena. demanded.
As of the Attorney General’s lawsuit in December 2022, the state claimed that VDARE had produced limited material from hardcopy files, but the content had been heavily redacted, with no corresponding logs or legal basis. He claimed that there was not.
The state claimed VDare did not create anything from what it identified as a 40-gigabyte potentially responsive electronic file, according to the complaint.
The attorney general’s argument states that if VDARE is allowed to defy the subpoena, the state’s investigation into potential wrongdoing by VDARE and its officers and directors will be irreparably harmed.
VDare.com, represented by Andrew J. Frisch of Manhattan, filed a federal lawsuit and subpoena in December 2022, alleging that state deadlines for large documents are unreasonable for small organizations and are retaliatory. attempted to destroy the certificate. Because of its political views.
A federal judge dismissed VDARE’s lawsuit in September 2023.
The VDARE Foundation, run by Peter and Lydia Brimelow, describes itself as a family-owned business with operations in New York.
The site publishes articles about white nationalism, but the couple deny in court documents that they are white supremacists.
When contacted by the Law Journal on Friday, Frisch said he was not immediately available to discuss the matter, but the organization was required to comply with the state’s document requests in the dismissed federal lawsuit. He said he had no way to respond. one time. He suggested that they could be provided on a regular basis.
