Woman seeks $1.5 million in damages from neo-Nazi website founder

COLLEGE PARK, Maryland — The first black woman to serve as American University’s student government president is seeking more than $1.5 million in court-ordered damages against a neo-Nazi website operator who orchestrated an online harassment campaign against her.

In a court filing Monday, Taylor Dumpson’s attorneys asked a federal judge in Washington for a default judgment against The Daily Stormer founder Andrew Anglin and a follower accused of racially harassing Dumpson on Twitter. Dumpson sued Anglin and the internet troll last April, but neither responded.

Dumpson seeks a total of more than $1.8 million in damages, fees and costs, including $1.5 million in punitive damages against Anglin and his company, Moonbase Holdings LLC.

Anglin didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Dumpson’s request.

Anglin’s website takes its name from Der Stürmer, a newspaper that published Nazi propaganda in Nazi-era Germany, and includes sections called “Jewish Problem” and “Race War.” For months, the site struggled to stay online after Anglin published a post mocking the woman killed by a man who plowed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017.

Anglin also faces possible default judgments in two separate lawsuits filed by other targets of his online trolling campaigns, a Muslim-American radio host and a Jewish real estate agent in Montana.

— AP