Idaho hospital sues Ammon Bundy and associate for defamation

An Idaho hospital that went on lockdown in March after far-right activists protested exterior is suing Ammon Bundy, Diego Rodriguez and their numerous political organizations for defamation and “sustained on-line assaults.”

St. Luke’s Well being System filed the lawsuit Wednesday in opposition to Bundy, his gubernatorial marketing campaign, and his Folks’s Rights Community group. The hospital system can also be suing Diego Rodriguez — the grandfather of the kid concerned within the safety case — in addition to Rodriguez’s web site Freedom Man Press and the Freedom Man political motion committee. Rodriguez is an affiliate of Bundy’s who has been lively in Bundy’s political marketing campaign.

The kid safety case concerned a 10-month-old child who was briefly faraway from household custody in March after officers decided the toddler was “affected by extreme malnourishment” and vulnerable to harm or dying, the Meridian Police Division mentioned on the time. The child’s mother and father had refused to let officers examine on the kid’s welfare after the household canceled a medical appointment, the police assertion mentioned.

Bundy, who’s well-known for collaborating in armed standoffs with regulation enforcement, was arrested the next day on a misdemeanor trespassing cost after he protested at a unique hospital the place he believed the child was being handled. He additionally requested his followers to protest on the hospital and the properties of kid safety service employees, regulation enforcement officers and others concerned within the little one safety case. Rodriguez, in the meantime, wrote on his web site that the child was “kidnapped,” and instructed that the state and other people concerned within the case had been engaged in “little one trafficking” for revenue.

The lads additionally instructed followers to protest on the Boise hospital on March 15. The ability went on lockdown for greater than an hour, diverting emergency sufferers to different space hospitals, after hospital officers decided the protests offered a security danger.

Within the lawsuit, St. Luke’s Well being System contends that the 2 males “labored collectively to fabricate a false narrative of a state-sponsored little one kidnapping and trafficking ring” that included the hospital, the Division of Well being and Welfare, regulation enforcement officers and others.

“They realized the details surrounding DHW’s intervention might be mischaracterized as a governmental conspiracy to kidnap, visitors and kill kids,” the hospital system’s legal professional wrote within the lawsuit. “Then, in flip, Defendants realized they might set up themselves as crusaders in opposition to their falsely manufactured governmental conspiracy.”

The defendants wished to generate curiosity in Bundy’s political marketing campaign for governor, elevate their public profiles and create monetary acquire within the type of donations from followers, the hospital system contends.

Neither Bundy nor Rodriguez instantly responded to emails requesting remark.

St. Luke’s is asking for greater than $50,000 in damages plus authorized charges in an quantity to be confirmed in trial. The hospital system additionally needs the defendants to be barred from making defamatory statements.

In an announcement, St. Luke’s mentioned it might donate any award of financial damages to a program for at-risk kids known as Kids At Danger Analysis Service.