Journalist files suit against Holly Springs cops in re: her arrest for social media post

We’ve been hearing reports about arrests in the UK for *insensitive* social media posts.  ARRESTS. That’s right. 

It’s appearing that we might be seeing some of that creeping onto our shores.  Late last year, conservative Wake County-based journalist Sloan Rachmuth found herself visited at home on a Sunday morning by three Holly Springs cops, handcuffed on her porch, and dragged off to jail in front of her family and neighbors.  She was placed in jail on a $1,000 cash bond.  Her *crime*?  Daring to ask in-person and via X (formerly Twitter) why an employee at her local Harris Teeter store was being allowed to wear an inflammatory piece of political paraphernalia while on the job.

Soon after being released from jail, Rachmuth received a call from Wake County district attorney Lorrin Freeman distancing herself from the matter, dismissing the charges against Rachmuth.  That was surely comforting, but the damage had been done.  The drive-by media had already had its field day over Rachmuth’s dust-up with the cops. It was time to get some legal advice.

The charges were gone – thanks to the DA. But the *fun* was yet to get started.  A complaint was filed this afternoon in federal court against the Holly Springs Police Department officers involved in the matter alleging the folllowing issues:

• Malicious Prosecution (4th Amendment) – Arrest lacked probable cause; cyberstalking statute didn’t apply; speech was protected.
• First Amendment Retaliation – Arrest was a direct punishment for political speech and journalistic activity.
• Selective Prosecution (14th Amendment) – Police ignored her past reports of antisemitic harassment but quickly arrested her for supposed anti-Muslim bias.
• Common Law Malicious Prosecution – Defendants acted with malice and no probable cause.
• False Arrest – Plaintiff alleges the arrest was illegal and unconstitutional
• Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress – Humiliation, trauma, and reputational damage stemming from how the arrest was conducted.

According to the filed complaint, here is Rachmuth and her team’s version of events:

[…]

1. On November 3, 2024, Plaintiff Sloan Rachmuth was enjoying a quiet Sunday

morning with her husband and two children, preparing to celebrate her seventeenth wedding

anniversary.

2. Suddenly, three officers with the Holly Springs Police Department (“Holly Springs PD”)—Defendants Elliott Warren, Benjamin Marino, and Edgar Hernandez––pounded on her door. When she answered, Defendants arrested Mrs. Rachmuth, handcuffed her, paraded her through her neighborhood, and shoved her into a squad car. Her husband could only look on, helpless and horrified. Her children were terrified. Her neighbors watched in shock. Mrs. Rachmuth was not permitted to get properly dressed or make herself presentable before being forced from her home and into a public spectacle.

3. Mrs. Rachmuth, a law-abiding citizen, could not imagine why she was being arrested in her home. In her panic and paranoia, she feared that she had been framed for murder.

Defendants, however, told Mrs. Rachmuth that she had been charged with cyberstalking for making an employee at a local Harris Teeter feel harassed. It was then she realized that her arrest was triggered by First Amendment-protected activities she had engaged in days earlier.

4. Three days earlier, Mrs. Rachmuth, a Jewish woman, political consultant, and independent journalist focused on Middle East and Jewish public affairs, was shopping at the Holly Springs Harris Teeter when she was shocked to see an employee wearing a keffiyeh. A keffiyeh is a head scarf with a specific black and white fishnet pattern that has become a symbol of support for Hamas in the wake the massacre and sexual violence that the terrorist group committed against Israeli civilians, including women and children, on October 7, 2023. Accordingly, the keffiyeh is an extremely offensive symbol to Mrs. Rachmuth and many Jews around the globe, among others.

5. Mrs. Rachmuth took a few pictures of the employee and approached her to ask why

she was wearing the keffiyeh. The employee noted it was “for free Palestine.”

6. After the store manager refused to answer Mrs. Rachmuth’s questions about why

the store was not enforcing Harris Teeter’s corporate policy prohibiting employees from wearing

political paraphernalia, Mrs. Rachmuth was asked to leave.

7. After she left the store, Mrs. Rachmuth decided to post the pictures she took of the

employee on X (formerly Twitter), tagging Harris Teeter’s corporate account. She did so to (1)

engage in political speech, (2) publish newsworthy content as a journalist focused on antisemitism

in her community, and (3) to alert Harris Teeter to violations of its corporate policies, all speech

and activity that is clearly protected by the First Amendment.

8. Nevertheless, within three days, Defendants had obtained a warrant and arrested

Mrs. Rachmuth solely for exercising her First Amendment rights to political speech and

journalistic activity. Defendants’ swift action against Mrs. Rachmuth lies in stark contrast to the

Holly Springs PD’s refusal to take action against similar, non-Jewish offenders Mrs. Rachmuth

previously reported for similar cyberstalking and harassment based on her Jewish identity.

9. But because Mrs. Rachmuth’s conduct plainly did not fall under North Carolina’s cyberstalking statute and was plainly protected by the First Amendment, Defendants lacked probable cause to arrest Mrs. Rachmuth. The District Attorney admitted as much when she dismissed the charge one day after Mrs. Rachmuth’s arrest, noting that the “described conduct does not meet the elements of the offense.”

10. But the damage had already been done. News of Mrs. Rachmuth’s arrest quickly

spread online. Mrs. Rachmuth’s reputation was destroyed, her job prospects dwindled, she was

forced to seek therapy for exacerbated post-traumatic stress disorder and panic attacks, and her

daughter was crippled with anxiety from her mother’s arrest.

11. All of this because Mrs. Rachmuth dared to speak online about a perceived act of

antisemitism in her community.

12. All of this because Mrs. Rachmuth dared to exercise her right to publish

newsworthy content online as an independent journalist.

13. Accordingly, Mrs. Rachmuth brings this Complaint to vindicate her rights under

the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and for damages resulting

from Defendants’ violations of those rights and their malicious prosecution, false arrest, and

intentional infliction of emotional distress. […]