Jeremy and George Hales have a very large YouTube channel with over half a million subscribers called “What the Hale$.” The channel focuses mainly on buying abandoned storage units and selling the contents for profit.
The Hales family became so successful at it that they began a philanthropy effort to give back to those around them, including sometimes buying abandoned storage units to return the contents to the owner. The Hales family is well-loved by their audience and community — at least they were until they bought property in Levy County Fla.
What happened after that the Hales say involves being stalked and harassed by neighbors at gunpoint, defamed with posted signs all over their town alleging heinous crimes against children, and more. When Jeremy filed for a protective order against his female neighbor, the state of Florida wouldn’t give him one. So Jeremy filed in his home state of Ohio, where a judge took the matter very seriously and granted the protective order immediately.
But the neighbor problem didn’t go away. The neighbor then filed a protective order against Jeremy which Judge Craig DiThomasis temporarily granted immediately. The injunction against Jeremy included an overbroad restriction of prior restraint on his free speech, ordering him not to talk about his neighbor on his YouTube channel. If anyone uses his neighbor’s name on his channel or causes his neighbor to be contacted, the judge says Jeremy can go to jail.
This puts journalists in an interesting position. If I reach out to the neighbor for her side of the story, a judge can jail Jeremy. In essence, a judge in Florida is restricting the right of the press to get to the heart of a story through threats of removing the liberty of the subject of the story.
Regardless of the matters of fact between the neighbors, the real issue has become Judge DiThomasis, who treats his courtroom like a star chamber. He has repeatedly chastised and berated Jeremy and his attorneys for Jeremy’s right to tell his story in public. He has refused to turn over recordings of public hearings, claiming somehow that they are private and can’t be disseminated. He has refused to recuse himself two times and is now facing a third motion to recuse.
One of the worst things the judge has done to Jeremy and his wife is to restrict Jeremy’s movements on his own property without hearing the facts of the case. It has been months since the neighbor filed the protection order, and no evidentiary hearing has been held. Jeremy cannot drive on his private road because it abuts the neighbor’s property, and he is ordered to stay 500 feet away from her property at all times. Further, he cannot use a large portion of his own front yard because of the injunction.
Worse, his Second Amendment rights have been removed with no evidentiary hearing to decide if he is actually the threat. Meanwhile, he says he’s been threatened by the neighbor and her associates with all manner of bodily harm. He is also prohibited from hiring security due to the injunction as he is not able to be around anyone who has guns.
Larry Forman, the DUI Guy, a lawyer with a YouTube channel, and I went over the recent motion to dismiss the judge on a stream yesterday. Forman has made a recap of the events leading up to this situation in the video below. This will be an important and interesting case to watch.
Can a judge show aggression and hostility toward a respondent in his court because the respondent is a YouTuber and the judge doesn’t like public attention and stay on the case? The law says no. Will he follow it? So far, he hasn’t, and it doesn’t look like he will suddenly reform.
Jeremy’s evidentiary hearing is finally scheduled for March 1, but DiThomasis has put restrictions on his witnesses that don’t appear to be on the plaintiff’s witnesses which raises serious questions about how the trial can possibly be called fair. The judge has also forced the removal of one of Jeremy’s lawyers due to the judge’s naked hostility toward the lawyer, which is written in black and white all over his court orders.
It’s one of the worst cases of “black robe-itis” I’ve seen in some years. DiThomasis truly believes he is the law and that everything he says becomes the law, even though his job is only to listen and interpret the law. Instead, DiThomasis spends inordinate amounts of time in every hearing listening to the sound of his own voice, complaining about YouTube, Jeremy’s attorneys, and anything else he can think of to not be quiet and hear the evidence.
When Forman began covering this story, his law firm received a hostile phone call, which some close to the story believe could be connected to the court system in Levy County, who says he is planning on filing a Bar complaint against Forman for covering this case. Retaliation against media trying to cover a public hearing creates a chilling effect on free speech. What is going on in that court? The American public should want to know.
No matter who is telling the truth in this case, the Constitution demands that an accused person has a right to face his accuser in public. This means in the open, free from censorship, gag orders, and unconstitutional assaults on free speech.
Judge DiThomasis might not like What the Hale$ or Jeremy’s speech, but he must, like the rest of us, tolerate it and restrain himself from favoring one side over the other. A judge is supposed to avoid even the appearance of bias at which DiThomas has failed spectacularly. He is clearly not fit to adjudicate this case and should not only recuse himself but should be removed from the bench.
To catch up on the details of this case, watch Forman’s interview with the Hales family here.