Defiant in resistance: Not guilty pleas for five of the nine charged in the Cities Church protest

Nekima Levy-Armstrong outside of the federal court building in St. Paul. Photo: YouTube

“I have no choice but to plead not guilty.” 

Those were the words of Nekima Levy-Armstrong when she was arraigned in federal court Friday afternoon on charges stemming from a Jan. 18 protest inside Cities Church in St. Paul. Fellow defendant, William Kelly, was even more pointed in his response to the charges. 

“I am not guilty,” Kelly told the judge. 

Levy-Armstrong and Kelly, along with former CNN anchor and independent journalist Don Lemon, St. Paul Public Schools board member Chauntyll Allen and college student Jerome Richardson appeared before a judge at the U.S. Courthouse in downtown St. Paul for their hearings. Protesters went to the church to express their concerns about Pastor David Easterwood’s leadership of the church while maintaining his leadership of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office in St. Paul.

Nine people in total were arrested weeks after the protest. Two of the nine – Lemon and Georgia Fort – were covering the protest in their capacity as journalists. Their arrests ignited a national uproar due to journalists' protections and freedom of speech rights under the First Amendment for the protesters. Richardson, a 21-year-old Temple University student, was neither a journalist nor protester, but was assisting Lemon as his Twin Cities liaison. 

The group of nine have been charged with the FACE Act, conspiracy against the rights of religious freedom at a place of worship and injuring, intimidating and interfering with the exercise of the right of religious freedom at a place of worship. The irony of the act is it is often referred to as the Klan Act, because it had been used to go after the Ku Klux Klan who were often intimidating Black parishioners. 

In an interesting turn of events, Lemon is being represented by former Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson, who resigned from the office in Minnesota just this past month. 

All five defendants at Friday’s hearing pleaded not guilty. 

Hearings for two more of the defendants, Fort and Trahern Crews, take place at 1 p.m. this coming Tuesday, Feb. 17, at the federal courthouse in St. Paul. 

Editor’s note: Georgia Fort is president of the Center for Broadcast Journalism, parent organization of Power 104.7 FM.