Right-, left-wing activists trade barbs and lawsuits

BERKELEY >> In the latest chapter in a feud between two high-profile political activists, former Berkeley College Republicans president Troy Worden announced he is suing antifa activist Yvette Felarca for more than $100,000 in damages.

Both sides had proclaimed vindication in October after an Alameda County Superior Court judge lifted a temporary restraining order against Worden initiated by Felarca, an organizer with the group By Any Means Necessary, or BAMN.

After the dismissal, Worden had announced that “now that we have stopped the multiple and ongoing harassment” by Felarca and BAMN, he hoped he could get on with his education and pursuit of his free speech rights. An attorney for Felarca, meanwhile, said the initial restraining order was dismissed on a technicality, and that the main aim, “to stop Troy Worden from stalking and intimidating Yvette Felarca,” had been achieved.

In a release Tuesday from San Francisco-based Praetorian Public Relations announcing the filing of a “motion for over $100,000 in damages,” Worden, referring to the restraining order proceeding, said, “I am glad that we are no longer playing defense and that we are finally going after BAMN for filing this frivolous action.”

Worden’s attorney, Mark Meuser of Dhillon Law Group of San Francisco, added: “Felarca and her attorney attempted to make free speech expensive and it is time that they pay for their misuse of the court system.”

Said the firm’s managing partner, Harmeet Dhillon: “This case represented a massive imbalance in power in that we had a poor college student about to lose his constitutional rights because a massive organization had the resources to try to crush him in court.”

But attorney Ronald Cruz of Oakland-based United for Equality and Affirmative Action Legal Defense Fund, representing Felarca, characterized Worden’s motion as “frivolous.”

“Troy Worden is a stalker,” Cruz said in an email Monday. “This motion is his attempt to use the courts to continue stalking Ms. Felarca. He stalked Yvette Felarca and it’s all on the record. The First Amendment does not give Worden the right to stalk people, or to violate a restraining order and be in Felarca’s face and take video of her for 30 minutes, which Worden did after the court commanded him to stay away.”

Felarca, a teacher at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, gained notoriety after she was filmed hitting a man during a June 2016 demonstration by white supremacists in Sacramento, where she was part of a counter-demonstration. She was charged in summer 2017 by the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office with assault and inciting and participating in a riot.

Worden was unseated as Berkeley College Republicans president earlier this month in an election that focused in part on the club’s invitation, during Worden’s stint at the helm, of rightwing celebrities Milo Yiannopoulos and Ann Coulter to speak on campus.