A court in California has ordered Antifa organizer Yvette Felarca to pay $11,000 after she filed a frivolous restraining order against former Berkeley College Republicans President Troy Worden.
In 2017, Antifa organizer Yvette Felarca filed a restraining order against former UC Berkeley College Republican president Troy Worden, citing two alleged incidents of harassment. Worden’s attorney alleges that Felarca made up two false accusations of harassment against him. He claims that Felarca used two incidents in which Worden made eye contact with her on campus as a basis for the restraining order.
Now, a California court has ordered Felarca to pay a $11,000 fine for filing a frivolous lawsuit. The funds will go directly to covering Worden’s attorney fees. In a press release, attorney Harmeet Dhillon suggested that the fine signals that Antifa can’t use the courts to silence their political opponents. “Felarca and her fellow travelers in BAMN [By Any Means Necessary]/Antifa need to learn that the California courts are not their personal plaything to use and abuse at will by filing baseless and vexatious lawsuits,” she said in the release.
“By ruling that she did not demonstrate good faith in filing the restraining order, the court recognized the frivolous nature of Felarca’s actions,” Worden’s attorney, Mark Meuser, added. “The award of attorney fees should send a strong signal that she cannot abuse the court system to silence speech.”
Dhillon mentioned that Felarca has brought unnecessary lawsuits to the court system twice in the past two months. “This marks the second time in two months that Felarca and her lawyers have been ordered by an area court to pay the attorney fees of their opponents for filing legally and factually unsupported claims in court,” Dhillon added. “True victims of harassment/stalking/assault need the courts to be available to them as a priority, not clogged with fabricated claims pursued in bad faith.”
In a February 2017 Fox News interview, Felarca defended the violence that took place on UC Berkeley’s campus earlier that month.