Today’s news that the Baton Rouge-based United Cajun Navy would, at a hearing tomorrow, seek permanent protective orders against eight individuals for alleged cyberstalking and harassment comes after more than one year of buildup, largely mounted over social media.
It’s significant because while much of today’s cyberstalking laws were enacted to protect minors and victims of domestic violence, there haven’t been many instances in case law with regard to small businesses or nonprofits, according to a researcher familiar with the suit.
But a slew of allegations wielded against the United Cajun Navy (the Baton Rouge disaster relief organization associated with the Cajun Navy ad-hoc volunteer groups across Louisiana) and its founder, Todd Terrell, reached a turning point in February with the creation of a Facebook group called Cajun Navy Wiki Leaks. The group, according to a Sept. 26 post by Tom Bever, one of the eight defendants identified in the civil matter, aims to “expose those who lie, cheat and con in hurricane relief.”
“The majority of the cons and scams have originated from four specific groups/individuals attempting to profit off the ‘Cajun Navy movement,’” reads Bever’s post, identifying the United Cajun Navy as one of them. “It is DAMN alarming the amount of people who have come forward to expose these crooks. I receive stories EVERY day of the injustices done under the guise of hurricane relief.”
A few days prior to the post, Bever had provided links to more than 90 reasons why Cajun Navy Wiki Leaks members don’t support the United Cajun Navy. Among them are allegations that the nonprofit has misused donation funds, avoided payments to contract workers, stolen supplies from truckloads, and failed some of the veterans it was supposed to help. Terrell denies the claims.
Another Facebook group called The Slandering Bever was subsequently launched in an effort to debunk the claims, billing itself as “a direct and factually based response to the coordinated smear campaign group created by cyberstalkers running the Cajun Navy Wiki Leaks group/page.”
Attorney Jarvis Antwine of Antwine Law Firm LLC, who is representing all eight defendants in the civil suit, did not respond to multiple requests for comment before this afternoon’s deadline.
The hearing takes place Thursday morning at 10 a.m. in the 19th Judicial District Court.
