{"id":490647,"date":"2026-10-09T18:52:07","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T18:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/490647\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T18:52:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T18:52:07","slug":"lawsuit-accusing-o-c-board-of-education-trustee-of-choking-neighbor-dismissed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/490647\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawsuit accusing O.C. Board of Education trustee of choking neighbor dismissed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A lawsuit that accused an Orange County Board of Education trustee of choking and attacking a neighbor during a road rage incident has been dismissed, court records show.<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit claimed Ken Williams Jr., who currently serves in District 3, in March 2023 threw his then-20-year-old neighbor to the ground and put his hands around his neck during a road rage incident in Mission Viejo.<\/p>\n<p>The 20-year-old was taken to a nearby hospital and the two men were cited for assault and battery, but the Orange County district attorney\u2019s office at the time said prosecutors who reviewed the case were unable to determine, beyond a reasonable doubt, who the <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/california\/story\/2024-02-16\/ken-williams-road-rage-lawsuit-orange-county-board-of-education-trustee-reelection\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">primary aggressor was<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>William\u2019s neighbor, Caden O\u2019Malley, filed suit in January 2024. <\/p>\n<p>The suit alleged that Williams \u201cslammed on his breaks\u201d while O\u2019Malley was driving behind him along El Toro Road and that, when O\u2019Malley tried to pass him on the left side, Williams began to speed up his Cadillac Escalade. After more back and forth on the road between the two, the drivers pulled over and a physical altercation ensued, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n<p>At the request of O\u2019Malley\u2019s attorney, Robert Vannah, the case was dismissed with prejudice in July, meaning claims tied to this incident cannot be refiled in civil court.<\/p>\n<p>Vannah declined to comment on the case. <\/p>\n<p>William\u2019s attorney, David E. Libman, said his client and O\u2019Malley had maintained different versions of how the incident unfolded. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cDr. Williams has always maintained that he was acting i self-defense,\u201d Libman wrote in an email. \u201cThe parties entered an agreement in June 2026 in exchange for a mutual release of claims; no money was exchanged. Per that settlement, the dismissal was then filed by Mr. O\u2019Malley.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Williams, who was first elected to the board in 1996, was facing a reelection campaign in March 2024. He was reelected to the board and is serving a four-year term. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A lawsuit that accused an Orange County Board of Education trustee of choking and attacking a neighbor during&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[14712,163,165,164,1052,191362,1436,8863,191364,1846,2959,16280,191363,53545,191365,11469,83454,10530],"class_list":["post-490647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-agreement","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-attorney","tag-caden-omalley","tag-case","tag-claim","tag-education-trustee","tag-lawsuit","tag-march","tag-neighbor","tag-o-c-board","tag-road-rage-incident","tag-robert-vannah","tag-suit","tag-william","tag-williams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490647","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=490647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}