Joey Gibson, founder of the right-wing group Patriot Prayer, is asking a Multnomah County judge to move a $1 million lawsuit against him outside the Portland area because he believes he can’t get a fair trial in a place he says is biased against him.

“(T)he political environment within Multnomah County and the City of Portland is so hostile and prejudicial that anyone who dares treat me as anything other than a violent racist Nazi will suffer adverse consequences,” Gibson wrote in court filings this week.

Gibson, who is from the Vancouver area, argues in a signed declaration that potential jurors drawn from in and around Portland are tainted, given prejudicial statements he says have been made against him by Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, City Commissioners Jo Ann Hardesty and Chloe Eudaly and U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Oregon. Gibson also says media coverage has falsely labeled him as a white supremacist and far-right extremist.

Gibson’s declarations are part of his response to a Circuit Court lawsuit filed against him, Patriot Prayer and several other men associated with his group. The owner of Cider Riot, a Northeast Portland pub, claims they interfered with his business by showing up May 1 and inciting violence and fights.

One frequent Patriot Prayer participant allegedly knocked a female pub patron unconscious after striking her on the head with a baton, according to the suit. Cider Riot was hosting a May Day celebration for those who had taken part in protests earlier that day.

Gibson’s court papers describe it as an anti-fascist event at an “Antifa bar.” Gibson has regularly clashed with the group.

No trial date has been set to hear the lawsuit case, but Gibson and his attorney filed Monday more than 100 pages of motions and declarations, asking for a change in venue. Portland attorney James Buchal, who is defending Gibson against the lawsuit, said in the court documents that opponents pounce on Gibson when he sets foot in Portland.

“Here, the degree of community hostility is extraordinary, to the point where Mr. Gibson cannot appear in public in Multnomah County without encountering masked residents who spit upon him and physically attack him,” Buchal wrote.

Gibson said before hiring Buchal, he contacted nearly two dozen lawyers, but most of them didn’t respond. Of the half dozen who did, some explained they wouldn’t take him on as a client out of fear over how the community would react, he said. Buchal is chairman of the Multnomah County Republican party.

Gibson has led marches and rallies in Portland and other liberal bastions on the West Coast, including Seattle, Olympia and the Bay Area, often provoking strong — and sometimes violent — opposition. Bloody brawls between Patriot Prayer supporters and counterprotesters have become a fixture at Gibson’s events in Portland. Last year, Portland police declared one of them a riot after right-wing and left-wing demonstrators clashed in downtown using fists, clubs and other weapons.

Gibson’s demonstrations have drawn criticism because they’ve attracted white nationalists and others who promote racist views. In Portland, speakers have included Kyle Chapman, who earned the nickname “Based Stickman” after a video showed him hitting an antifascist activist with a wooden sign post in Berkeley.

In court papers, Gibson also is asking a judge to throw the case out on the grounds he was exercising his free speech rights outside the pub May 1.

Buchal said Gibson was peacefully recording video of the scene from a public sidewalk when he was repeatedly pepper-sprayed in the face, spat at and subjected to flying objects. Gibson’s involvement is protected by the state’s anti-Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation law, also known as the anti-SLAPP law, he said.

“This is a textbook case ... in which plaintiffs unabashedly seek to misuse the Courts of Oregon as a tool to silence Mr. Gibson’s First Amendment activity in what is quintessentially public space for First Amendment activities: the streets and sidewalks of Portland,” Buchal wrote.

In his declarations, Gibson described himself as “confrontational” and said he expects antifa activists will react with violence at his appearances but that he’s not violent himself.

On the evening of May 1, he went to Cider Riot knowing that antifa supporters had gathered there and that his own followers would be just off bar premises, too, he said.

He began to live stream the scene on Facebook, showing masked antifa members sitting on the patio.

“As part of my goal was to show the violent and ugly nature of the Antifa members present, in response to their demands that I leave the area, I dared them to do something,” Gibson wrote.

Someone spit on him, so he wiped the spit back on the person, he said. He was pushed and his cellphone was knocked to the ground, he said. An antifa member apparently threw a drink toward someone on the sidewalk, then “some of the people” started pepper spraying each other, he said.

“At this point, I remarked that there was now a riot at Cider Riot, and that the Antifa members had taken the bait, meaning that they had responded to my presence, and the presence of others, with violence, and had, as usual, initiated it,” Gibson wrote in the court documents.

-- Aimee Green

agreen@oregonian.com

o_aimee

Reporter Shane Dixon Kavanaugh contributed to this report.

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