Two Penn State students are raising money to pay for fines they were slapped with after destroying pro-Trump signs at a rally that took place on campus.
The students are looking to raise twice the amount of their fine so that the second half can be donated directly to Planned Parenthood.
The vandals were identified as Hanna DeMarte and Trystyn Murphy, who have both launched an online fundraising page so that supporters of their actions can help them pay off the fines they received from the university for their actions. Both DeMarte and Murphy claimed that they “both received notice in the mail that we’re being fined $362 each for criminal mischief,” and that “failure to respond to this charge in a timely manner will result in our arrest.”
In a post that originally appeared on Penn State’s pro-Trump club’s Facebook page, DeMarte admits that he appears in the video that circulated online of protesters taking Trump posters from students and ripping them up.
“Another student and I ripped up a couple of the Trump signs that bordered their wall,” DeMarte confesses, complaining that “a video of this, originally posted by the Trump club’s Facebook page, circulated on social media and was picked up by some alt-right news networks.”
Penn State student Dimitri A. Loutsik reported the two counter-protesters to the police, claiming that the two protesters were solely responsible for the destruction of the posters: “We had the very successful Trump Wall event, which I attended and supplied the Trump signs for,” Loutsik claimed. “I unfortunately had a class that day where attendance is mandatory and close to 25 percent of my grade, so while I was in class the majority of my signs got ripped up by two of the counter-demonstrators.”
“Fortunately we got it on video, so I and some eye-witnesses went to the university police and reported it,” Loutsik explained. “Then fast forward a couple of weeks, and I get my friend texting me telling me that the two people I reported got fined, and are asking people to donate money to Planned Parenthood in my name.”
Loutsik and his peers are confused as to why the counter-protesters have sought to raise money for planned parenthood in response to their punishment for destroying the pro-Trump posters. Loutsik says that because he has never expressed a public opinion, it is likely that the counterprotesters are seeking to repudiate the conservative students whose decision to report them led to the lofty $724 fine.
Tom Ciccotta is a libertarian who writes about Free Speech and Intellectual Diversity for Breitbart. You can follow him on Twitter @tciccotta or email him at tciccotta@breitbart.com