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\nJune 26, 2013<\/p>\nJeff Olson, the 40-year-old man who is being prosecuted for scrawling anti-megabank messages on sidewalks in water-soluble chalk last year now faces a 13-year jail sentence. A judge has barred his attorney from mentioning freedom of speech during trial.<\/p>\n
According to the San Diego Reader, which reported on Tuesday that a judge had opted to prevent Olson\u2019s attorney from\u00a0\u201dmentioning the First Amendment, free speech, free expression, public forum, expressive conduct, or political speech during the trial,\u201d\u00a0Olson must now stand trial for on 13 counts of vandalism.<\/p>\n
In addition to possibly spending years in jail, Olson will also be held liable for fines of up to $13,000 over the anti-big-bank slogans that were left using washable children\u2019s chalk on a sidewalk outside of three San Diego, California branches of Bank of America, the massive conglomerate that received $45 billion in interest-free loans from the US government in 2008-2009 in a bid to keep it solvent after bad bets went south.<\/p>\n
The Reader reports that Olson\u2019s hearing had gone as poorly as his attorney might have expected, with Judge Howard Shore, who is presiding over the case, granting Deputy City Attorney Paige Hazard\u2019s motion to prohibit attorney Tom Tosdal from mentioning the United States\u2019 fundamental First Amendment rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe State\u2019s Vandalism Statute does not mention First Amendment rights,\u201d\u00a0ruled Judge Shore on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Upon exiting the courtroom Olson seemed to be in disbelief.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh my gosh,\u201d\u00a0he said.\u00a0\u201dI can\u2019t believe this is happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Tosdal, who exited the courtroom shortly after his client, seemed equally bewildered.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never heard that before, that a court can prohibit an argument of First Amendment rights,\u201d\u00a0said Tosdal.<\/p>\n
Olson, who worked as a former staffer for a US Senator from Washington state, was said to involve himself in political activism in tandem with the growth of the Occupy Wall Street movement.<\/p>\n
On October 3, 2011, Olson first appeared outside of a Bank of America branch in San Diego, along with a homemade sign. Eight days later Olson and his partner, Stephen Daniels, during preparations for National Bank Transfer Day, the two were confronted by Darell Freeman, the Vice President of Bank of America\u2019s Global Corporate Security.<\/p>\n
A former police officer, Freeman accused Olson and Daniels of \u201crunning a business outside of the bank,\u201d evidently in reference to the National Bank Transfer Day activities, which was a consumer activism initiative that sought to promote Americans to switch from commercial banks, like Bank of America, to not-for-profit credit unions.<\/p>\n
At the time, Bank of America\u2019s debit card fees were among one of the triggers that led Occupy Wall Street members to promote the transfer day.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just an empty threat,\u201d\u00a0says Olson of Freeman\u2019s accusations.\u00a0\u201dHe was trying to scare me away. To be honest, it did at first. I even called my bank and they said he couldn\u2019t do anything like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Olson continued to protest outside of Bank of America. In February 2012, he came across a box of chalk at a local pharmacy and decided to begin leaving his mark with written statements.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it was a perfect way to get my message out there. Much better than handing out leaflets or holding a sign,\u201d\u00a0says Olson.<\/p>\n
Over the course of the next six months Olson visited the Bank of America branch a few days per week, leaving behind scribbled slogans such as\u00a0\u201dStop big banks\u201d\u00a0and\u00a0\u201dStop Bank Blight.com.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Olson, who spoke with local broadcaster KGTV, one Bank of America branch claimed it had cost $6,000 to clean up the chalk writing.<\/p>\n
Public records obtained by the Reader show that Freeman continued to pressure members of San Diego\u2019s Gang Unit on behalf of Bank of America until the matter was forwarded to the City Attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
On April 15, Deputy City Attorney Paige Hazard contacted Freeman with a response on his persistent queries.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to let you know that we will be filing 13 counts of vandalism as a result of the incidents you reported,\u201d\u00a0said Hazard.<\/p>\n
Arguments for Olson\u2019s case are set to be heard Wednesday morning, following jury selection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jeff Olson, the 40-year-old man who is being prosecuted for scrawling anti-megabank messages on sidewalks in water-soluble chalk last year now faces a 13-year jail sentence. A judge has barred his attorney from mentioning freedom of speech during trial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31808,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,52,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-45392","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-money","9":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45392\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}