As if Senator Rick Santorum didn’t have trouble enough, now one of his team is facing a lawsuit for allegedly violating the rights of several women who came to speak with him at a book signing and discussion session for “It Takes a Family.”
So, too, is a Delaware state trooper who, while in full uniform, was acting as a security guard for the event last August 19.
(See “Santorum’s People Toss Young Women out of Barnes & Noble, Trooper Threatens Them with Prison.”)
The trooper, Sergeant Mark DiJiacomo, of the Delaware State Police, allegedly kicked out and threatened several of the women, and arrested two of them for a short period—all before Santorum had even shown up.
On May 30, 2006, Stacey Galperin, Miriam Rocek, Hannah Shaffer and her mom, Heidi, along with one minor, sued Sergeant DiJiacomo. They also sued Jane Doe, an unidentified “member of Senator Santorum’s promotional team.” They are seeking “redress for the deprivation of their First and Fourth Amendment rights and for the emotional distress caused by Sergeant DiJiacomo’s false arrest and unlawful threats,” the lawsuit says.
The suit says DiJiacomo deprived the plaintiffs of their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom to petition for redress of grievances. By arresting Galperin and Rocek, DiJiacomo deprived them of their Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizure, the suit says.
Santorum’s promotional team member engaged in a conspiracy to violate the plaintiffs’ rights, the suit says. Though the plaintiffs don’t know her name yet, she was, “on information and belief, employed as a member of Senator Santorum’s promotional team” at that time. She used, the suit charges, “the apparent authority of Defendant DiJiacomo to threaten Plaintiffs with arrest, eject them from the Store, and arrest Plaintiffs Galperin and Rocek, solely because of their political views and without probable cause.”
Sergeant DiJiacomo did not comment on the suit.
“There were no arrests made,” says Ralph Durstein, deputy attorney general for the State of Delaware, who is representing Sergeant DiJiacomo. “Mark DiJiacomo more or less tried to serve as an intermediary between the campaign folks and the manager of the Barnes & Noble on the one side and some pretty unhappy folks on the other who had hoped to engage in dialogue. As far as the lawsuit is concerned, the claim really should be directed at the Jane Doe defendant, who was working for the Senator and who attempted to confine the conditions under which the Senator would appear.”
Senator Santorum’s spokesperson, Virginia Davis, would not comment publicly about it and referred all questions to ISI, the publisher of the book.
“No employees of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) were present at the “It Takes a Family Book Signing” at Barnes & Noble in Wilmington, Delaware, on August 10, 2005,” said Douglas Schneider, director of institutional marketing for the company. “Therefore, ISI has no comment on any legal action pertaining to this event.”
Barnes & Noble had nothing to do with the alleged violation of rights, says the lawsuit, brought by the Delaware and Pennsylvania affiliates of the ACLU. “No Barnes & Noble employee or agent ever instructed Defendant DiJiacomo to have Plaintiffs ejected,” the lawsuit says. “No Barnes & Noble employee or agent ever instructed Plaintiffs to leave the store.”
The plaintiffs are seeking an admission that their rights were violated, attorneys’ fees, and “nominal, compensatory, and punitive damages in an amount to be proven at trial.”
"These women were there to take part in the event," says ACLU of Delaware staff attorney, Julia Graff. "The advertisements said 'book signing and discussion,' not 'discussion only if you agree with the Senator. The trooper denied these women their right to share their views with an elected official. This is precisely the kind of conduct the First Amendment was designed to guard against."