Ron Toye Puts Forth Questionable, Broad Definitions of Assault and Harassment During Deposition For Dragon Ball Super: Broly Voice Actor Vic Mignogna’s Ongoing Lawsuit

Ron Toye Puts Forth Questionable, Broad Definitions of Assault and Harassment During Deposition For Dragon Ball Super: Broly Voice Actor Vic Mignogna’s Ongoing Lawsuit

While being deposed by the legal team of Dragon Ball Super: Broly voice actor Vic Mignogna, defendant Ron Toye arbitrarily defined what constitutes an ‘assault’ or ‘harassment’ while being unable to support his definitions.

As part of the ongoing defamation lawsuit filed against Toye and others by Mignogna, Toye was deposed by members of Mignogna’s legal team including Ty Beard and Carey Christie of the law firm Beard Harris Bullock Hughes.

Throughout the course of the deposition, Toye is asked various questions relating to his involvement in the accusations of sexual assault and harassment being leveled against Mignogna. As he is being deposed, Beard asks Toye, in the presence of his attorney Casey S. Erick, to elaborate on his definition of harassment and is met with Toye’s assertion that a statement can become harassment depending on the outside replies of 3rd party audience members on Twitter (time code 1:22:28 in the below video):

“Beard: Is disagreement harassment? Toye: Depends. Beard: Let’s say you say ‘Donald Trump is wonderful’ and I disagree. Is that harassment? Erick: Objection to Form. Toye: If that’s the only thing you say to me, no. Beard: I say, “I really disagree”. Is that harassment? Erick: Objection to Form Toye: No Beard: If I say “Only an idiot would vote for Donald Trump.”, is that harassment? Erick: Objection to Form Toye: And it’s just you? Beard: For now, it’s just between us. Toye: No. Beard: Same set of facts, except we’re doing it publicly on Twitter and thousands of people are reading tweets. Is that harassment? Erick: Objection to form. Toye: Could be. Beard: Why? Erick: Objection to form Toye: Depends on what the people are saying underneath it.”

When pressed by Beard to confirm his definition that harassment is dependent on the actions of 3rd parties, Toye is unable to concretely qualify his definition of harassment:

“Beard: If I heard you correctly, and again I don’t want to put words in your mouth, if I heard you correctly you seem to say to me that whether or not the statement “only an idiot would vote for Trump” is harassment depends on what 3rd parties do? Toye: No, not necessarily. Beard: Okay, then please tell me how you think that statement could be harassment. Casey: Objection to form: Toye: I’m not sure. Beard: Does that change your answer that it could be harassment? Toye: I’m not sure. Beard: Okay. Could be, couldn’t be. Toye: Just depends. Beard: Depends on what? Toye: I’m not sure. It’s hypothetical. Beard: I understand, but what does it depend on? Toye: I’m not sure.”

Toye being unable to qualify the terms with which he has labeled Mignogna is a recurring trend, as he later states that he believes that assault constitutes “[a]ny action, verbally, physically, or emotionally that asserts themselves in a way that offends or hurts another person,” but is then immediately unable to define what constitutes a statement as an assault (time code 2:17:30 in the above video):

“Beard: How do you define the word ‘assaulted’? Toye: Sure. Any action, verbally, physically, or emotionally that asserts themselves in a way that offends or hurts another person. Beard: Anything…and again, I’m trying to understand the contours of what you’re saying- Are you saying that anything that offends someone is an assault? Toye: If the person thought that was an assault, yes. Beard: Among the types of activities you defined as an assault were statements, correct? Toye: Could be. Beard: Okay. So are you saying that any statement that offends someone is an assault? Toye: No, I didn’t say that. Beard: Okay. What is necessary for a statement to be an assault? Toye: I’m not sure.”

Ironically, a short time after putting forth this definition Toye’s lawyer condescendingly chastises Christie, a female attorney, for “sidebar comments” (which are unintelligible in the video recording) and orders her to “behave herself.” These statements and positioning would fall under his client’s own definitions of assault (time code 2:56:08 in the below video):

“Erick: Objection to sidebar comments. Christie, that’s inappropriate, and that’s the second time I’ve heard you comment about the witness. Christie? You understand? Christie: Yeah, I understand your point. Calm down. Erick: Alright. Then let’s stop the cute remarks. Christie: Calm down. Erick: I am calm. Christie: No you’re not. You’re yelling. Erick: Stop making those snide remarks. Christie: Don’t yell at me. Erick: Okay, well then behave yourself. Christie: I am. Beard: Excuse me? I’m sorry, did you actually tell a female attorney to ‘behave herself’? Erick: I did.”

Further information or arbitrary definitions could be revealed as Toye’s deposition is several hours long and is being released incrementally to the internet. The deposition videos are currently being shown, with live commentary, by attorney Nick Rekieta on his channel Rekieta Law.

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