Elise Aubuchon felt she owed it to other women to speak out. It was 2020, and #MeToo had prompted countless people to publicly expose those who had harassed and abused them. Years after she says she was raped, and once she realized the police weren’t going to pursue her case, she decided to make a public post on Facebook naming the alleged rapist. “MY VOICE WILL BE HEARD,” she wrote. “THIS IS FOR ALL THE VICTIMS OF THIS SICK MAN!!!!”
She wasn’t planning to pursue legal action; she just wanted to warn others. Instead, it was the man she accused who sued her. Almost immediately after she put up her post, he sent her a letter threatening to sue her for defamation if she didn’t take it down. She refused. She hoped it was just an empty threat. But less than three weeks later, he filed a defamation lawsuit against her, according to court records, and demanded $25,000.
“I felt defeated,” she told The Intercept. She was making $11 an hour and had no resources to fight him off; he already had a lawyer. She scrambled to find one of her own, mining the comments on her Facebook post for people to talk to. When she contacted one, she asked what she could do with little to no money. “It was extremely stressful,” she said, not knowing if she would be able to come up with the funds to defend herself. “It’s really scary. And it just feels like a second attack.”
In the five years since the start of the #MeToo movement, a quiet but effective legal backlash has swept over those who spoke out...
Washington, April 27 Prominent television hosts and journalists have pushed back against online claims that the White House ... Washington, April 27 Prominent television hosts and journalists have ...