CHARLOTTESVILLE (WINA) – An Albemarle County resident who gave video of the August 12 car attack to media outlets is now suing a number of conspiracy news outlets for defamation. The Georgetown Law Civil Rights Clinic has filed suit in Charlottesville federal court on behalf of Brennan Gilmore, who was downtown August 12th as a counter-protester. The suit names Alex Jones, Infowars (which Jones created and runs), Free Speech Systems LLC (part of Jones’ Infowars), former Florida Congressman Alan West, Derrick Wilburn (author of an article on Gilmore on Alan West’s website), Lee Stranahan (formerly of Breitbart and now working for Russian-controlled news agency Sputnik), Lee Ann McAdoo A/K/A Lee Ann Fleissner (an Infowars host), Scott Creighton (operator of a website “American Everyman”), and James (Jim) Hoft.

Gilmore was walking along 4th Street August 12th and began shooting cellphone video when he witnessed the car driven by James Fields speeding down 4th Street. The video — which shoots toward the ground at times — shows the sights and sounds of the carnage that occurred when the car sped into a crowd, killing Heather Heyer, then speeds backwards up 4th Street back toward Market Street.

He says he submitted the video first to police, then to media outlets. He says the backlash was almost immediate. Alt-news outlets started calling him a “murderous shill” who was part of a George Soros-financed scheme to cause violence in Charlottesville. They point to his profession as a foreign service officer with the State Department — for which he is on extended leave without pay — and the fact he was chief of staff of Tom Periello’s campaign for governor.

Gilmore says since these “conspiracy theories” naming him have continued, he and his family have faced harassment, death threats, hate mail, and hacking attempts. He claims his parents’ address was posted online, and an envelope with white powder showed up there one day. Gilmore says he’s had to involved law enforcement at times. He says he was even recently accosted on a Charlottesville street by someone demanding to know his role in what happened August 12th.

He says he thought of filing this suit soon after he wrote the following article published in Politico:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/21/fake-news-charlottesville-215514

The suit claims:

“Supporters of the “Unite the Right” rally, including Defendants, faced a crisis of legitimacy when a fellow supporter murdered Heather Heyer in cold blood. Defendants needed a scapegoat to create distance between the ideology they promote and Heyer’s murder. Given Mr. Gilmore’s connections to Democratic politicians and the State Department, Defendants thought they had their scapegoat in Mr. Gilmore, and attacked his presentation of the sequence of events based on his
political leanings. But Defendants did more than just twist the publicly available information about Brennan; Defendants created a new identity for Mr. Gilmore out of whole cloth. All Mr. Gilmore had done was share the truth about the tragic and traumatic act he regrettably witnessed. For a man who has devoted his life to serving his local community, the Commonwealth, the United States, and the global community, Defendants’ absurdly false portrayal of him, and the harassment that
followed, was devastating.”

“To this day, Brennan suffers the effects of this character assassination: his career as a diplomat has been compromised, he has lost potential partners and clients in his most recent business venture, and his social relationships have been irreversibly damaged.”

The suit seeks:

A. An award of presumed and actual damages to compensate Mr. Gilmore for his
reputational, emotional, and professional injuries, in an amount to be determined at
trial;
B. An award of damages to compensate Mr. Gilmore for his emotional distress, in an
amount to be determined at trial;
C. An award of punitive damages, in an amount to be determined at trial;
D. An award of reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs to the fullest extent permitted by law;
and
E. Such other and further relief as the Court deems just.

The suit — along with supporting documents of the alleged conspiracy pieces — can be read by clicking here.