A former candidate for the House of Representatives was arrested on harassment and trespassing charges after he was caught on the property of The Journal News — a newspaper he sued for defamation for publishing stories about an anti-racial integration essay he wrote in 2001.
Jim Russell, who unsuccessfully challenged Rep. Nita Lowey (D) in New York’s 19th District in 2010, was arrested Thursday by the Harrison Police Department after he was found on the News’s property. According to the Journal News, Russell had turned up on the property a few times over the last few weeks, leading the paper to warn him through his lawyer to stay away.
Harrison Town Justice Ronald Bianchi released Russell, though he’s been ordered to stay off the property, the News reports.
In October of last year, Russell filed a lawsuit against members of the Journal News, News 12, Regional News Network, and the state and Westchester Republican parties, for allegedly defaming his character during the election.
According to Russell, the news networks defamed him by writing articles about a 2001 essay he wrote for The Occidental Quarterly, a journal that is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In his essay, Russell came out against racial integration and inter-racial marriage.
“In the midst of this onslaught against our youth,” Russell wrote, “parents need to be reminded that they have a natural obligation, as essential as providing food and shelter, to instill in their children an acceptance of appropriate ethnic boundaries for socialization and for marriage.”
Read the full essay here (in .pdf form).
In his lawsuit, Russell claimed the state and local GOP defamed him by renouncing his comments and withdrawing their support, even though he won the primary.
Russell asked for $1 million in damages from each of the nine people named in the suit, but in July, the state Supreme Court dismissed it.
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