Pittsburgh DA Says No Free Speech for Women
Goal:
USD $10,000
Raised:
USD $320
Pittsburgh DA Says No Free Speech for Women
Pittsburgh DA Violated My 1st Amendment Rights After I Told the Truth in Self Defense Against Trans Activist Neighbors
I live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I'm a single woman. In April 2022, my neighbors started a sign war with me, then asked the District Attorney to charge me with "harassing" them for the sign I put up * in response to theirs. *
It's been two years and eight months. I've been through three trials with three different activist judges who declared me guilty and ordered me to pay a $200 fine. After the second trial, I appealed to the higher court, where I should have won, but the lawyer I hired initially was grossly negligent, causing all manner of problems and resulting in a remand back to the trial court, which is where I just had the third trial, on Feb. 10th, with yet another politically biased judge.
These former neighbors are married men who had been defaming me for two years as "dangerous" to their four teenaged sons, one of whom they call their daughter. In June 2020, the one man threatened to SWAT me to police, and he repeatedly lied that I had "scared" his sons. His behaviors absolutely terrified me for a three-week period that culminated in my cat going missing mysteriously. (I did get her back after four days.) Thus, in April 2022, when they placed a flag on their property facing me that said "Trans Rights Are Human Rights," I responded with a sign that said "Transing Kids Is Abuse and Homophobia." My intent was not to cause them to move, but they did in fact sell their house and move in 2023. They've testified they moved due to my "dangerousness" but I am the one who now can feel safe at my home, as I no longer have a group of six men and boys ten feet away who are watching me constantly, making false accusations against me, and are determined to destroy me with insane lies.
I am safe at my home now, but when they obtained the criminal harassment charge against me in May 2022, the men immediately libeled me in the press and online, including with lies painting me as racist. That has caused me severe psychological harm and distress, but I also am very harmed financially from fighting the baseless charge. I have had to spend almost $17,000 on attorneys to try to clear my name and vindicate my 1st Amendment rights. Those costs ended my self-employment as a (very small) real estate developer. I'm no longer able to qualify for loans to buy and rehab fixers, as I was doing since 2009. I am down to five rental units, having had to sell one of my properties to stay solvent.
How I'll use funds raised here:
If I am able to raise $10K here, the money will go to a lawyer to appeal my case to the Superior Court (for a second time). * I have until March 10 to file the appeal. * If I don't reach the $10K fundraising goal, or don't get close enough, I will use any donated amounts to try to start to rebuild my life. I am not sure how I can do that since I am libeled so severely, and the criminal conviction is reported online, but I will find a way. The destruction of my name also affects my ability to find tenants. I have had one prospective tenant tell me directly she would not rent from me because of what she saw when she googled my name. A couple others just ghosted.
I know many people are struggling and there are so many good causes to support, but if you can spare a few dollars to defend our American 1st Amendment rights and specifically, the free speech rights of women, I would greatly appreciate it. My conviction is grossly unjust. It says men have free speech and women don't. And, if / when my charge is dismissed, I will have grounds to file a federal lawsuit holding this District Attorney accountable for its illegal, politically motivated prosecution.
Recent Donations
The truth will prevail.
Good luck with beating this ridiculous harassment.
I stand with you. No child is born in the wrong body.
Thank you for bravely using your voice in a world that hates women’s voices!
Free speech for women is so important for democracy in this country. Women need to be able to express ourselves without fear of reprisal. Stay strong, Darian! You speak for many!
Thank you for speaking out on behalf of women and children. 🙏 🙏 Your voice is making a difference in ending this gender madness. It’s not bigotry to believe in biological reality. 🙏
Updates
Update #1 - I am appealing pro se
March 14th, 2025
The loss on Feb. 10 was a significant blow and I believed it was the end. But after I recovered and posted this crowdfunder, I gave the situation more thought and realized it would be worth it to attempt to accomplish an appeal without an attorney ("pro se"). It occurred to me that since I previously appealed with an attorney and therefore I possessed the documents that were filed in the proceeding, and had a little familiarity with the process, I should attempt it myself rather than give up. I didn't want to give up. So this past Tuesday, March 11, I filed my Notice of Appeal. It was an ordeal where I was running around on foot downtown for over two hours, but the clerks were very helpful. Incidentally, the clerk noted that he had never seen a case where the DA had not entered my DOB and SSN into the system. He had to enter this information in order to effect the appeal, making me wonder (1) why this was not noticed the first time around, and (2) if I am such a dangerous criminal, why has the state not bothered to record my data? :)
Part of this process is ordering the transcript of the Feb. 10th trial. The three-judge panel in the appellate court, and the briefs to be submitted by both sides, will refer to the specifics of what was said during trial. I'll receive the transcript within the next couple of weeks. Then I will file a document which tells the court the grounds on which I am appealing (the 1925b). That document is fairly simple. The difficult one will be the brief that I will have to write. Fortunately, based on the timeline in my first appeal, I should have at least two or three months to work on my brief (and I have the brief filed by my former lawyer to use as a template).
I also want to report the good news that I have found a part-time job, at $16.50/hour. This enables me to keep treading water financially.
I appreciate all your donations so much. The appeal required fees of $170, plus the transcript will cost an estimated $300. Had I admitted guilt and paid the fine and court costs, I would have had to pay $409 in total, so appealing is not much more expensive than capitulating to the state's tyranny, at least in money terms. I have spent many hours working on it already, and I will spend dozens more hours in the months to come. For one thing, I will be reading the 128 pages of the "Pennsylvania Rules for Appellate Procedure."
Thank you again for your support.
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