A group of mostly Caucasian police officers in Philadelphia on Monday filed a $90 million lawsuit against the Plainview Project, Mayor Jim Kenney, District Attorney Larry Krasner and both former and current police commissioners Richard Roth and Danielle Outlaw.
The complaint alleges discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity and sex, “insofar as the plaintiffs, six Philly cops, were terminated and/or constructively terminated for private social media posts which were illegally hacked by defendant The Plainview Project,” according to lawyer Larry Klayman, who filed the action.
“There is a systematic effort by these defendants to harm and endanger the police, in order that the left can take control of not just major cities like Philadelphia but the nation as a whole,” Klayman, founder of Freedom Watch, explained.
“My clients, brave Philly cops who risked their lives in one of the most dangerous of cities, are being made the scapegoats for hack leftist politicians, district attorneys and their enablers, such as George Soros, in order to seize control over our body politic. White male cops in particular have been targeted for extinction, based on discrimination. We at Freedom Watch believe that all citizens, including white male cops, deserve to be respected and to that end we have brought suit for damage and other relief in excess of $90,000,000 USD. The defendants must be taught a lesson they will never forget.”
Soros, the far-left billionaire, in recent years has been donating heavily to his specially chosen candidates for prosecutor around the nation.
The complaint, in which plaintiffs reserved the right to later convert to a class action for all similarly situated Philly police, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and is styled Melvin et. al v. Kenney et al.
Klayman’s co-counsel is Andrew Teitelman.
Klayman explained the hacked social media posts were falsely characterized by the defendants as racist, homophobic and Islamophobic, “in a contrived effort to remove them from the police force for political purposes.
The complaint alleges defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and violation of constitutional rights.
The plaintiffs are Michael Melvin, Dan Farrelly, Brion Milligan, Mark Palma, Robert Bannan, Jesus Cruz and Steven Hartzell.
The filing states, “This is a complaint for damages and equitable relief arising out of the targeted, discriminatory and illegal hacking of Caucasian and other non-African-American, non-Muslim City of Philadelphia police officers’ computer accounts, twitter accounts, and social media accounts of the plaintiffs and those other Philadelphia police officers of a Targeted Class as alleged herein who are similarly situated.”
The hacking was by Emily Baker-White, who does business as Plain View.
The attacks were “motivated by and are the result of racist, ethnic and sex-based animus and prejudice against plaintiffs and the targeted class of similarly situated Philadelphia police officers.”
There has been “employment discrimination and other tortious acts that have harmed plaintiffs.”
The hacked statements “are not racist, homophobic or Islamophobic nor objectionable, as defendants, each and every one of them, characterized them, which defamation was and continues to be maliciously published widely by the defendants, but were at most mere differences of opinions or points of view.”
“Importantly, they were not made in the line of police duty but privately on private social media accounts.”
It was last year that the private message and postings of 323 Philadelphia officers, including plaintiffs, were illegally hacked and disclosed by Plain View, which reposted the comments with the intention “to harm if not provoke deadly violence against plaintiffs…”
The defendants took “adverse employment action” after finding the private comments.
“The plaintiffs were thus harmed in their employment and occupation and terminated and/or constructively terminated from their employment.”
“In contrast, non-white, African American and [others] have not been terminated, or constructively terminated for their actual racist social media postings and transmission, nor even disciplined.”
It alleges First and Second Amendment violations, defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
