{"id":454789,"date":"2026-09-05T19:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T19:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/454789\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T19:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T19:56:10","slug":"san-jose-official-ordered-to-pay-54k-in-court-fees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/454789\/","title":{"rendered":"San Jose official ordered to pay $54K in court fees"},"content":{"rendered":"

An unusual scene unfolded in the San Jose City Council chamber on Tuesday as a man approached the dais and served District 5 Councilmember Peter Ortiz with legal documents. The incident, which has raised eyebrows online and in City Hall, is part of the\u00a0fallout from an anti-harassment suit that Ortiz lost earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Ortiz filed the civil suit in December 2023, seeking a restraining order against Robert Saenz, the owner of popular social media accounts posting about San Jose, after he made a series of derogatory posts targeting the then first-year councilmember<\/a>. Ortiz lost the case on appeal in January after judges ruled the speech fell under constitutional First Amendment protections. He has been ordered to pay Saenz $54,000 in attorney fees, according to a representative who said Ortiz has still not paid.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe never responded,\u201d Patrick Evans, Saenz\u2019s attorney, told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight.<\/p>\n

\"AVideo of the San Jose City Council meeting on Sept. 1, 2026 posted online shows process server Mark Andrews placing court documents in front of Councilmember Peter Ortiz.<\/p>\n

The documents served Tuesday to Ortiz, who is running for a second term representing East San Jose<\/a>, included one ordering him to appear at an Oct. 5 hearing and a subpoena for his personal finance records. Such court proceedings are intended to bring to light a debtor\u2019s assets.<\/p>\n

Evans has also filed to garnish Ortiz\u2019s wages if payments do not begin within the coming weeks, he said.<\/p>\n

Ortiz<\/a> did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

A video of Tuesday\u2019s incident shows process server Mark Andrews walking up to the dais prior to the start of the council meeting and placing the court documents in front of Ortiz. A brief verbal exchange between the two follows as Andrews walks away.<\/p>\n

The video, captured by independent journalist Susan Bassi, has since circulated widely online in posts that have gathered millions of views.<\/p>\n

Ortiz\u2019s 2023 lawsuit centered on a series of online posts from Saenz, who maintained the popular ESSJ Times Instagram page.<\/p>\n

The page, which now operates under a different name but at the time had more than 54,000 followers, covers current affairs in San Jose, often featuring videos of public safety-related incidents. In some posts, Saenz has also spoken out on transgender issues. One video, cited in the lawsuit, equated support for gender affirming care for minors with child abuse, using the derogatory term \u201cgroomer\u201d for those who support such care.<\/p>\n

The harassment case came as a direct response to a video post from Saenz that included an image of Ortiz\u2019s face with the words \u201cbrown puppet\u201d superimposed on top. In that post, Saenz claimed Ortiz, who is Latino, does not represent San Jose\u2019s Latino and Mexican community.<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially the majority of the community that is against grooming our children,\u201d Saenz wrote in the post.<\/p>\n

In court filings, Ortiz said the posts \u201cfalsely accusing me of \u2018grooming\u2019 or sexualizing children\u201d have attracted swarms of negative comments directed against him and have put his safety as well as that of his girlfriend at risk. The post also included images of Ortiz\u2019s girlfriend.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Saenz) is aware of how his posts are interpreted by his followers and encourages them to attack my girlfriend and me online by including our Instagram account usernames in his posts,\u201d Ortiz wrote in filings for the court. \u201c(Saenz) sees the comments from his followers calling for violence and does nothing to discourage that discourse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saenz\u2019s posts targeting Ortiz appeared months after the councilmember had joined his colleagues in taking a public stand in support of transgender people and the broader LGBTQ+ community. The city council passed a unanimous resolution<\/a> of solidarity with the groups in October of 2023, a move that came in response to a local, parent-led backlash<\/a> against the inclusion of LGBTQ+ topics and materials in school curriculums.<\/p>\n

\"In-line<\/a><\/p>\n

At first, Santa Clara County Superior Court Commissioner Johanna Thai Van Dat granted Ortiz\u2019s request for a restraining order, which restricted Saenz from approaching Ortiz or his girlfriend. It also blocked Saenz from making any more \u201cdefamatory statements\u201d about the pair.<\/p>\n

But the decision was later overturned when another judge, Eric Geffon, struck down the lawsuit in an April 2024 ruling. While stating that Saenz\u2019s posts traffic \u201cin the conspiracy-theory language that has become all too common in our current political climate,\u201d Geffon found the comments to be constitutionally protected speech. In the ruling, Geffon noted the posts relate to political matters, such as who should serve on city council and what policies they should pursue.<\/p>\n

Ortiz appealed the ruling, but in January, a court of appeal affirmed the lower court\u2019s ruling.<\/p>\n

Evans said he hopes the outcome sends a message to local elected leaders.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe case is important to show city council people, politicians generally, that they have to be careful about taking action against a constituent,\u201d Evans said. \u201cThey have to think hard \u2014 is that speech really threatening me? Is it defamatory? Or is it just free speech that\u2019s protected?\u201d<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s Note: Santa Clara County Superior Court Commissioner Johanna Thai Van Dat was incorrectly identified as a judge.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Contact Keith Menconi at [email\u00a0protected]<\/a> or @KeithMenconi on X.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An unusual scene unfolded in the San Jose City Council chamber on Tuesday as a man approached the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":454790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[712,88,5500,90,89],"class_list":["post-454789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-centerpiece","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-city-council","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/454790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}