(Texas Scorecard) – Texans sued by Democrats for participating in a 2020 Trump Train were finally vindicated after enduring three years of “lawfare” targeting conservatives engaging in political free speech.
Following a two-week trial in a federal court in Austin, a jury delivered “not liable” verdicts Monday for five of the six defendants: Randi and Steve Ceh, Joeylynn and Robert Mesaros, and Dolores Park.
A sixth defendant, Eliazar Cisneros, was found liable but intends to appeal.
The case began in October 2020, when a group showing support for then-President Donald Trump’s re-election trailed a Biden-Harris campaign bus as it traveled through Central Texas.
In June 2021, bus driver Timothy Holloway and Democrat passengers—including abortion activist and former State Sen. Wendy Davis and Biden-Harris campaign director David Gins—sued several of the Trump supporters in federal court, alleging conspiracy and civil rights violations.
The plaintiffs claimed the Trump Train participants conspired to intimidate Democrats from voting for Biden and Harris.
The defendants maintained they were exercising their First Amendment-protected right to free speech.
“After four years of lawfare, justice prevailed,” defendant Joeylynn Mesaros, a homeschool mom from New Braunfels, said following Monday’s verdict.
Mesaros told Texas Scorecard Tuesday, “Everyone’s free speech went on trial before the jury.”
It had very little to do with us—we were just the placeholder for the American people. Thankfully, the jury upheld Constitutionally protected free speech rights and justice prevailed. The fight is far from over, but we are celebrating a huge win for everyone!
“This jury verdict is a complete vindication of my clients and a spectacular failure for the plaintiffs,” attorney Jerad Najvar, who defended the Mesaroses, told Texas Scorecard.
“While the plaintiffs sued us for ‘intimidation,’ it was the plaintiffs and their ideological lawyers who tried to scare conservatives away from expressing support for the candidates of their choice,” said Najvar. “They tried to game the judicial system and use it as a weapon against political opponents.”
According to Najvar, the plaintiffs “deployed more than 30 lawyers for this case from Willkie, Farr & Gallagher, Protect Democracy, and Texas Civil Rights Project, and must’ve spent millions.”
He said the plaintiffs also hired a sociologist as an expert witness “who claimed all the defendants had political views ‘outside the mainstream’ and engaged in ‘extremist collective action’ like they were some kind of white supremacists.”
Najvar also stated that Judge Robert Pitman “watered down the protections of the First Amendment” in his description of the law for the jury, “effectively granting far too much leeway for the plaintiffs to claim ‘injury’ from what was really just a political rally.”
“Despite all this, the jury saw through the deception,” he said.
Najvar added that while the verdict goes a long way toward restoring his clients’ reputations, “it doesn’t go far enough.”
“Our next step will be to seek reimbursement for attorneys’ fees and sanctions for the plaintiffs’ lawyers’ unethical conduct in this case, including their failure to disclose the identities of other drivers on the road whom the plaintiffs had apparently identified even before filing the case,” said Najvar.
“This is not over.”