After initially being released on recognizance at about 4:23 AM the next morning and charged with two misdemeanors of Menacing and Disorderly Conduct, I was instructed to show up later that afternoon for an arraignment.
This was all new to me as I had never been arrested before, never previously charged with a crime, and never been a party during a court proceeding. I’ve never even had so much as a speeding ticket.
That morning I reached out to attorney Jason Short’s law group, as they had a good reputation for defending legal gun owners charged with crimes, especially in self defense. After a brief conversation, I was put in contact with one of the other attorneys at his firm who said he would meet me before the arraignment.
This evidently changed as the day went on, and before I knew it, a different attorney was contacting me. This happened to be Short’s least experienced junior attorney, Chris Trotter.
We showed up for the arraignment, and deputy district attorney Kate Molina tells us she is now charging me with two felonies of Unlawful Use Of A Weapon and she’s going to move the courts to order me back in jail on a $250,000 bond.
What she didn’t tell us is that she was going to pull out a false police report and use it to justify me as some kind of danger. This report was filed by a guy named John Slaughter, who, as it turned out, helped to organize the mob to attack me the previous evening. My only encounter with Slaughter was at a different event about a month prior, where he and several other got in my face screaming at yelling at me. I had never seen him before, had no idea who he was. Molina claimed I was there to “disrupt” the event, which is untrue, as I was just standing there holding a camera, once again, just doing my job.
After that incident, Slaughter called the Portland police and claimed that I was sending him threatening race-based text messages and voice mails, claimed that I drove by his house with my hand in the shape of a gun pointing toward him, and that I had ties to white supremacist groups. I didn’t even know he made this report until this moment.
At this point I had no idea who John Slaughter was, nor did I care. All those new allegations were news to me, as I hadn’t engaged in any of that sort of thing. I have far better things to do.
DA Kate Molina read that out loud, to the judge, claiming it to be factual, with all the local media there.
And what did Chris Trotter do in response? He stumbled and bumbled his way through a bunch of vague legalese, with just one sentence to rebut Molina, saying “My information, in speaking with my client, is that these situations that are being brought up, number one, are not accurate, and number two, are being conflated and confused.”
He never once aggressively denied these allegations against me, his client. Listen to the audio from the proceeding:
As a result, I was thrown in jail, and held on $250,000 bond. All for being targeted, attacked, not harming a fly, and trying to avoid an altercation.
Working under the direction of Jason Short, Chris Trotter is the weakest attorney I’ve ever seen.