Leaders of a Haitian nonprofit group in Springfield, Ohio, filed a criminal affidavit Tuesday against former President Donald Trump and his Republican running mate, Sen. JD Vance, seeking their arrest over racist lies that Haitian immigrants were “eating the cats, dogs, and pets of people” in the community. The affidavit, filed in Clark County Municipal Court by Guerline Jozef, co-founder of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, alleged the former president and the Ohio senator had violated criminal laws including disrupting public services, making false alarms, complicity, aggravated menacing and telecommunications harassment and complicity.
Under Ohio law, private citizens are permitted to file an affidavit asking the courts to find probable cause that alleged offenders have committed a crime. Subodh Chandra, Jozef’s lead counsel, told HuffPost on Tuesday that the organization was “tired of waiting for the prosecutor to act to indicate the rule of law and protect the community.” He added that Trump and Vance “know exactly what they’re doing” when they spread the lies, calling their actions “unapologetic serial criminal activity.
” “I mean, they know what the power of their words is, they know that they have a megaphone and a platform that is so powerful that if they are irresponsible with it, it can wreak havoc,” Chandra said. “They know it, and they’ve seen it as a result of what they’ve done here, and yet they double down and triple down and quadruple .