A Texas judge reversed her nearly-month-old ruling Friday and agreed to continue hearing a defamation lawsuit filed by a Houston hair salon owner against Delaware right-wing activist Lauren Witzke.
The case’s resumption leaves lawyers for the hair salon owner, Eric Vaughn, seeking information from Witzke about the matter, including where she lives. A May 18 filing by her attorney, Mark Ivanyo, claimed Witzke is a Florida resident despite claims by her that she lives in Delmar.
“We intend to establish that, through her conduct, despite living out of state, the defendant has subjected herself to the jurisdiction of Texas Courts,” Vaughn’s lawyer, Anthony Buzbee, said. “Someone defamed shouldn’t be required to guess where a defamer lives, or chase them to hell and back, guessing on their whereabouts, just to get justice.”
Neither Witzke nor Ivanyo responded to Delaware Online/The News Journal emails asking where she lives. Witzke, however, responded with a claim of collusion between Texas District Court Judge Tanya Garrison and Buzbee.
“After Mr. Buzbee, reminded Judge Garrison of the $7,500 donation that he recently made to her campaign, she decided to give him another bite at the apple,” she said in a statement. “Money talks and this is why God created the court of appeals.”
Witzke was referencing donations Buzbee made to Garrison’s campaign. The $7,500 in campaign donations, however, were not recent as Witzke claims. The campaign contributions were made over a period of time, according to Transparency USA: $5,000 was donated to the Democrat judge in 2022 and another $2,500 this year, according to the website’s most recent numbers for 2023.
While the Houston trial lawyer has donated to many judges’ campaigns, an article in law.com said Buzbee in 2016 donated $500,000 to then-President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration committee weeks after he said he could no longer support Trump.
Buzbee called Witzke’s comment “outrageous” and said it “merits no response.”
Defamation case resumes
District Court Judge Garrison on July 12 dismissed a civil lawsuit filed by Vaughn saying Texas courts lacked “personal jurisdiction,” meaning the judge does not have the power or authority to make decisions that affect a person — in this case Witzke.
More:Texas judge drops lawsuit against Lauren Witzke, rules court ‘lacks personal jurisdiction’
Buzbee appealed, arguing Witzke opened herself to litigation in Texas when she intentionally downloaded the TikTok video belonging to Vaughn – a citizen of that state – and then added defamatory statements to his intellectual property without his consent and published it on her own social media.
“By taking intellectual property that did not belong to her, Defendant thus made intentional contacts with the forum (Texas) and purposefully availed herself of the forum in one fell swoop,” according to court documents.
Witzke furthermore subjected herself to Texas jurisdiction when she said she would pursue Buzbee and his law firm for costs, sanctions, and attorney’s fees in that state’s courts.
Garrison agreed and on Aug. 11 vacated her previous order to vacate the case.
Why was a lawsuit filed?
Vaughn, who has nearly half a million TikTok followers, shared a video on social media in late February showing him and his husband holding their 32-week-old surrogate twins as a family for the first time.
Witzke, who ran for U.S. Senate and lost to Chris Coons in 2020, reposted Vaughn’s video to her Twitter account 17 days later saying, “A new fetish with pedophiles consists of robbing babies from their mothers straight out of the womb. This is human trafficking and would be illegal in a sane society.”
Original story:Couple sues Lauren Witzke for saying birth of their surrogate twins is ‘human trafficking’
Vaughn filed his defamation lawsuit March 20 in Texas’ District Court of Harris County, where most of Houston is located. In addition to seeking no more than $75,000 in damages, Vaughn said he filed the legal action to make an example of Witzke and discourage her from spewing such comments about anyone in the future.
Ivanyo, Witzke’s attorney, in court documents last month said Vaughn’s lawsuit was not to make the hairstylist whole, but “to silence political opposition and send a message to all who agree with Witzke’s deeply held religious beliefs.”
He also called the lawsuit frivolous, adding the legal filing has nothing to do with Texas.
Contact Esteban Parra at (302) 324-2299 or eparra@delawareonline.com.
