Protesters arrested in 2019 suing Sonoma County, Westminster Woods

Four people arrested in a 2019 protest at Westminster Woods Camp and Conference Center near Occidental filed suit against Sonoma County, the camp and four individual parties under federal civil rights law Monday, saying their treatment in Sonoma County Jail amounted to torture.

“They were deprived of food, water and sleep for most of that time,” Southern California attorney Jerold Friedman, who is representing all four plaintiffs, said Tuesday.

“One of them had a hood placed on her head, like they did Abu Ghraib prison, for no penological purpose. And one now-female transgender protester had her clothes stripped off, and the jailers were laughing, saying, ‘I told you she’s a man.’”

The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the jail, also deprived the detainees of medication during their jail stays, which lasted from four to seven days, Friedman said.

The Sheriff’s Office, through Sgt. Juan Valencia, declined to comment on the lawsuit.

The four plaintiffs in the civil case are Gwen Danielson, now 27, who was homeless at the time of her arrest; Emma Borhanian, 30, of Albany; Alexander Leatham, 24, residence unknown; and the transgender woman, who is from Berkeley and was listed only by her male name in criminal and civil documents.

Their arrest stems from a demonstration at Westminster Woods that left counselors and guests there rattled. On Nov. 15, 2019, the four blocked the exit to the woodsy retreat with a box truck, shuttle bus and Toyota Prius, and emerged wearing black robes, gloves and Anonymous-style Guy Fawkes masks. Two of them carried walkie-talkies, one wore a body camera and another had pepper spray, according to the initial arrest report.

The situation escalated when a Westminster Woods employee reported that one of the protesters was armed.

“I can’t tell you the person’s state of mind when they called 9-1-1,” Friedman said. “But I can tell you my clients did not have a gun. They’re not that kind of people. And no gun was found at the scene.”

The defendants in the civil case, in addition to the county and the camp, are arresting deputy Joseph Ricks, supervising deputy Daniel Ager, Westminster Woods executive director Christopher Rhodes and Olivia Longstaff, a teacher naturalist there.

“Christopher Rhodes or Olivia Longstaff wanted to interrupt and stop the protest, so they called the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department to falsely report that Plaintiffs had a gun,” the complaints reads. “Agar had the ability to intervene in the arrest of each Plaintiff but failed to intervene in their arrest.”

It goes on to say that, “During the arrest, Ricks touched (the transgender woman) inappropriately and sexually. (She) loudly shouted that she was being sexually assaulted.”

Rhodes declined to comment.

The civil complaint against the county and the camp says the four were there that day “to protest the cover-up of child molestation by one or more people at Westminster Woods.”

Friedman doubled down on the accusation Tuesday, saying, “My clients were trying to do the right thing. They were trying to protest child molestation, and they end up in jail for four to seven days, and tortured while in there.”

He declined to state whether he was accusing Westminster Woods employees of molesting children, or pointing the finger at the Berkeley-based Center for Applied Rationality, the organization that was holding a retreat at the camp and has been assumed to be the target of the protests.

Parallel to the civil suit, the four protesters are facing felony conspiracy charges, and misdemeanor charges of false imprisonment, child endangerment, resisting arrest, trespassing and wearing a mask while committing a crime.

A court date on the criminal case is set for Wednesday. That hearing was scheduled to resolve the issue of the body-camera footage collected by the deputies in 2019. The Sheriff’s office believes the footage is not subject to California law AB 748, because there was no issue of “great bodily injury or death.”

The defendants’ lawyers want it introduced in court.

“Prosecution is trying to quash the subpoena seeking camera footage,” said Friedman, who is not representing anyone in the criminal procedure. “That is extremely unusual. It’s body cam footage, of course it’s relevant.”

He said Wednesday’s court date is likely to be postponed, because one of the attorneys involved will be in trial.

Friedman’s civil complaint is intentionally vague, he said. It does not, for example, include the monetary damages he is seeking for his clients. He wants the criminal case settled before providing additional details, he said, because he doesn’t want to tip his hand to the parties he is suing.

On the day of the arrests in 2019, a group of children were participating on a ropes course at Westminster Woods. Sheriff’s deputies shut down Bohemian Highway for several hours and sheltered the children in an armored police vehicle after being summoned. Authorities evacuated about 50 people in a school bus.

It was all overkill, Friedman insisted.

“In a democracy, we have the right to conduct ourselves any way we want,” he said. “We can dress as we want. We can be loud, we can make others uncomfortable. It’s all under free speech. When there are allegations of a gun, it elevates everything.”

You can reach Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @Skinny_Post.