Last year, Larry Bushart spent 37 days in a Tennessee jail because he had shared a widely circulated anti-Trump meme on Facebook. Today his attorneys announced that he has agreed to settle the resulting federal lawsuit in exchange for a payment of $835,000.
"No one should be hauled off to jail in the dark of night over a harmless meme just because the authorities disagree with its message," said Adam Steinbaugh, a senior attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which represented Bushart along with local attorney Katherine Phillips. "We're pleased that Larry has been compensated for this injustice, but local law enforcement never should have forced him to endure this ordeal in the first place."
