A Honolulu district judge Friday granted gubernatorial candidate state Rep. Andria Tupola an injunction against harassment, restraining the leader of a conservative Republican splinter group from contacting, threatening or harassing her.
Tupola sought the petition against Eric Ryan, president of the Hawaii Republic Assembly, after she accused him of harassment and cyberbullying. She claimed Ryan’s social media posts and advertisements about her incited death threats from other people.
Ryan was expelled Thursday from the Republican Party of Hawaii by a 19-12 vote of its full state committee.
In the petition, Tupola said the posts and attacks had been ongoing for more than a year and were “incessant.”
This was Tupola’s third petition filed against Ryan. Judge Michael Tanigawa denied the first petition April 12. The second was denied April 16 by Judge Hilary Gangnes, who presided over Friday’s hearing.
Gangnes’ order, which both parties agreed upon, is in effect for three years. She ordered Ryan to refrain from contacting Tupola by telephone, cellphone, mail, email, texts and social networking sites.
The judge noted the case involves the intersection of First Amendment free speech rights involving political issues, which makes it different from the average temporary restraining order case, but said “the statute doesn’t except politicians from its protection.”
She said there is no legitimate purpose to posting photographs and making allegations about her family members who are not running for political office. She concluded that the purpose was to cause Tupola emotional distress, “with apparently no factual basis.”
During the hearing, Ryan’s attorney, Gerald Kurashima, questioned why she felt threatened by Ryan’s presence at an April 6 public gubernatorial forum she attended even though she didn’t physically see him there. Tupola said someone informed her Ryan was there.
“When you feel harassed and people tell you that the person who is harassing you is at a physical location, it disturbs you and alarms you because you’ve never interacted with these people,” she said.
“As you saw, these were all social media electronic interactions, so we’ve never interacted in real life. So to be told that somebody that was electronically and social media-harassing you is in the physical location that you’re in, it makes you feel disturbed because you don’t know what will happen next,” she said.
Kurashima said Ryan was exercising his First Amendment rights when he commented on Tupola’s record, and that his comments did not contain any threats or harassing remarks.
Tupola’s attorney, Michael Green, in his closing comments said state law on harassment gives politicians the same protections as other people.
Ryan said Friday during the hearing was the first time that Tupola retracted the stalking allegation about him at the April 6 public gubernatorial forum.
Republican John Carroll, who is running against Tupola, accused her of committing perjury in her attempts at getting a TRO against Ryan by saying he stalked her.
The hearing got contentious between Ryan and Green, as Green questioned Ryan about his Facebook posts against Tupola and her family members.
Ryan repeatedly responded with snide remarks and in a provocative manner.
When Green asked Ryan whether Tupola’s statement was a true statement in the petition where she said she feels “afraid and helpless,” Ryan said, “I think she’s full of it.”
“Full of what? Green asked.
“Full of the same stuff you’re full of,” Ryan said.
Gangnes directed Ryan to stop being intentionally difficult as his answers were “evasive and obstructive.”
Green called what Ryan did to Aaron Wilson, executive director of the Republican Party of Hawaii, “evilness” by sending to his boss information and a photo that he was a pedophile, despite knowing it was false. “It shows his lack of credibility,” he said.
When cross-examined by Green as to whether he would change anything about what he wrote about Tupola, he said, “Yes. … I would have told people more affirmatively, ‘She’s lying like crazy,’ and that you haven’t taken any of it back.”
