Washington: A prominent Indian-American attorney’s law firm representing a Haitian community group in Ohio has filed a criminal complaint against Donald Trump and JD Vance seeking their arrest for provoking chaos, threats, and unrest in Springfield with false charges that immigrants are eating pets of residents.
Under an Ohio statute that allows private citizens to file criminal charges, the Cleveland-based Chandra Law Firm hired by the Haitian Bridge Alliance charged Trump and Vance with false alarms, telecommunications harassment, aggravated menacing and complicity, while asking the local court to affirm there is probable cause and issue warrants against the MAGA duo.
“If it were anyone else other than Trump and Vance who had done what they’ve done - wreak havoc on Springfield, resulting in bomb threats, evacuated and closed government buildings and schools, threats to the mayor and his family, they would have been arrested by now. They are not above the law,” the firm’s founder Subodh Chandra said.
Chandra, a former federal prosecutor who has handled several high-profile cases including the police-shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice by Cleveland police, said he was fighting the case pro bono after inaction by the local prosecutor despite Trump-Vance claims about pet-eating Haitians being refuted the Ohio governor and Springfield mayor, both Republicans.
Chandra is closely allied with the Democratic Party but he said his personal political affiliation had nothing to do with taking up the case. “Trump and Vance must be held accountable to the rule of law in the same way any of the rest of us would be,” he said, outlining the distress they had caused Springfield residents, including Haitian immigrants, many of whom came there at the invitation of city businesses to take up jobs locals would not.
According to city estimates, there are 10000-12000 Haitians in Clark county which includes Springfield.
