A federal judge awarded more than $14 million to a woman who was barraged with anti-Semitic and threatening messages online after a neo-Nazi blogger instructed his followers to target her and her family with a "troll storm."
The judgment was handed down Monday against Andrew Anglin, a white supremacist and publisher of the website The Daily Stormer.
In his decision, judge Jeremiah Lynch found that Anglin "acted with actual malice" when he told followers: "Let's Hit Em Up. Are y'all ready for an old fashioned Troll Storm? Because AYO - it's time, fam."
What followed were a series of racist and sometimes threatening messages to Montana real-estate agent Tanya Gersh, her co-workers, and her family, including her 12-year-old son.
The judgment against Anglin included more than $200,000 for lost earnings and medical expenses incurred by Gersh, $821,000 for future lost earnings, and $3 million for past and future pain and suffering.
The bulk of the judgment, however, was the state maximum of $10 million in punitive damages against the white supremacist for what the judge called "particularly egregious and reprehensible" behavior and to "punish Anglin and deter him from engaging in such conduct in the future."
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Gersh sued Anglin after he posted her personal information on The Daily Stormer website in 2016, resulting in hundreds of threatening and harassing messages sent to her, her husband and son.
Anglin accused Gersh of trying to run the mother of white supremacist Richard Spencer out of the Montana resort community of Whitefish, which Gersh denies.
Anglin did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
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