The leader of the Haitian Bridge Alliance filed the criminal charges over false claims the former president and his running mate made about Haitian immigrants' eating local pets.

Sept. 24, 2024, 6:33 PM PDT / Updated Sept. 24, 2024, 7:40 PM PDT
By Zoë Richards

The leader of a Haitian nonprofit community group filed criminal charges Tuesday against former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, over false claims they made about Haitian immigrants’ eating local pets in Springfield, Ohio.

Guerline Jozef, a co-founder and the executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, filed the charges on behalf of the group.

"Over the last two weeks, both Trump and Vance led an effort to vilify and threaten the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio," Jozef wrote. "Together, they spread and amplified the debunked claim that Haitians immigrants in Springfield are eating cats, dogs, and wildlife."

The group’s attorney, Subodh Chandra, cited inaction from a prosecuting attorney in asserting Jozef’s right to file the charges as a private citizen.

Ohio law allows private citizens to file affidavits charging people with crimes. However, the law requires hearings to take place before the affidavits can move forward. As of Tuesday afternoon, none had been scheduled.

Trump and Vance were charged with disrupting public services, making false alarms, complicity, telecommunications harassment and aggravated menacing in the filing, which asked Clark County Municipal Court to find that there is probable cause and to issue warrants for Trump's and Vance's arrests.

“If anyone else had disrupted public service, made false alarms, and engaged in telecommunications harassment in the manner Trump and Vance did with their relentless and persistent lies—even after the governor and mayor said what they were saying was false, they would’ve been arrested by now," Chandra said in a statement Tuesday. "They must be held accountable to the rule of law in the same way any of the rest of us would be.”

Trump-Vance campaign communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement that Trump "is rightfully highlighting the failed immigration system that Kamala Harris has overseen, bringing thousands of illegal immigrants pouring into communities like Springfield and many others across the country."

City officials have repeatedly said the claim that Haitian immigrants have arrived in Springfield illegally is not true.

During the presidential debate this month, Trump said Haitians in Springfield are "eating the pets of the people that live there." He has continued to spread false claims about pets in Springfield on his social media website and at rallies.

Vance has also echoed the false claims, writing on X before the debate about reports alleging to show "that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country,” and later doubling down on the claims in interviews.

Springfield has responded to more than 33 bomb threats this month that have led to temporary closings and evacuations of schools and city buildings. Mayor Rob Rue has also endured threats, Chandra said.

Officials in Springfield have said the allegations are meritless, with police saying in a statement that there were “no credible reports” of Haitian immigrants’ harming pets.

In an op-ed published by The New York Times on Friday, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican who had previously dismissed the claims about pet eating as “garbage," also addressed the influx of Haitian immigration over the past three years, challenging claims that they had settled in the city unlawfully.

"They are there legally. They are there to work," he wrote.