The acronym FML is been around on the internet for some time. You used to see it everywhere, but these days it is less popular. This reporter is going to begin using it because when they write about David Wayne Flash, they are often wanting to use curse words. Curse words should be avoided, but there are points when they should regretfully be used. So if this reporter types “David Flash is a big poop head. (FML),” one can think of that in their mind as actually reading “David Flash is a sh!thead, FORGIVE MY LANGUAGE.”
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Earlier this year Flash’s lawyers filed a case in Federal Court against a bunch of people in Jeff Davis County and elsewhere. The elsewhere refers to people who have moved away. Perhaps the reader is wondering where the heck (FML) David Flash found lawyers to represent him. Mr Flash has not one, but four attorneys representing him. Top of the list has a website with a domain that was created about a year ago. The site doesn’t feel like the website of a lawyer I would hire:
The other three are with Smith and Vinson. Smith and Vinson has a polished website with a domain that was registered over 11 years ago. Seems like a legit outfit and our sources in Austin confirm these guys are on the level or at least no worse than other attorneys. Only 2 things that need to be pointed out. First they have an AI chat bot thing that covers a large part of the page and has a repeating video with a super close up of someone’s face. If I want legal advice from a chatbot, couldn’t I just to straight to ChatGPT or elsewhere? Second, and this is disappointing to see, they have not registered smithandvinson.org or smithandvinson.net.
When Jeff Davis County had to find legal representation from outside the area due to our County Attorney being recused, a lawyer from the Office Of The Attorney General came from New Braunfels to do so. Geoff Barr had no connection to the county and simply stood in to represent us. David Flash went ballistic. This is a tactic Flash seems to use to try and keep people from standing up to him. The case of Geoff Barr is a perfect example. Flash claims to have filed a Notice Of Claim against Barr. He published a number posts on his blogs and on FB making all kinds of false claims about Barr.
He also published this about Barr’s campaign for judge:
One can search online and find many other examples of David Flash unfairly targeting the attorney for the great crime of doing their job. The funny part is it was Barr who decided to drop the charges, but David continued to go after him.
It would seem only fair that someone register the available smithandvinson domains and go after them as well. If they want to make money off of Flash, they should have to pay the price. Sorry to disappoint, but we aren’t going to do that. We don’t think David should have targeted Geoff Barr and we won’t target Smith and Vinson just for the sake of revenge. They have a job to do and we respect that. Y’all should probably go ahead and register your .org and .net domains guys.
On to the lawsuit. Flash has named a bunch of people individually and in their official capacity.
JEFF DAVIS COUNTY, TEXAS;
CURTIS EVANS, individually and in his
official capacity as County Judge;
VICTOR LOPEZ, individually and in his
official capacity as Sheriff;
GLEN EISEN, individually and in his
official capacity as County Attorney;
MARY ANN LUEDECKE, individually and in her
official capacity as Justice of the Peace;
ADRIANA RUILOBA, individually and in her
official capacity as Chief Deputy;
JOSEPH GIESBRECHT, individually and in his
official capacity as Deputy Sheriff;
KING MERRITT, individually and in his
official capacity as Deputy Sheriff; and
LISA DENNISON, individually,
Defendants.
From there it goes on to make a bunch of claims about this being a free speech case, etc etc. Part D has a Summary of Claims. Let’s examine them by number. The first claim is number 14.
14.From September 2023 to the present, the elected policymaking officials of
Jeff Davis County being County Judge, Curtis Evans, Sheriff, Victor Lopez, and
joined by County Attorney, Glen Eisen, Justice of the Peace, Mary Ann Luedecke—
reached a meeting of the minds to achieve an unlawful objective: the suppression
of Flash’s journalism through prior restraint, harassment, and retaliation for
exercising free speech.
Let’s first start out with the fact that Victor Lopez was not Sheriff in September 2023 and would not become Sheriff until January 2025. David Flash had been doing all the crazy stuff that is documented on video at our YouTube and it would be no surprise if county officials from all over the area were all talking about what to do about The Rage Farmer David Flash.
15.These elected officials are final policymakers for Jeff Davis County.
Sure
16.Chief Deputy, Adriana Ruiloba, Deputy Giesbrecht, Deputy King Merritt,
and former County Attorney employee Lisa Dennison were county employees or
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Original Complaint Page 8 of 51
former employees who knew of the objectives of the conspiracy against Flash and
committed specific acts in furtherance of the conspiracy.
Chief Ruiloba and Deputy Giesbrecht didn’t come on board with the county until the same time and the Sheriff, 2025 Jan 1. It hasn’t been established that any conspiracy existed.
17.The existence and purpose of the conspiracy are not a matter of inference
because in December 2024, County Attorney Glen Eisen admitted in a recorded
public Commissioner’s Court meeting that the County’s legal actions against Flash
were “motivated by our coverage,” such that Flash’s Big Bend Times operated
as a “megaphone,” and that Flash “brought it on himself” [government
restraints and retaliations] through his journalism.
17 is interesting. Throughout the document Flash’s attorneys refer to a direct quote by Glen Eisen “motivated by our coverage.” They claim that quote establishes that the county was retaliating due to Flash’s coverage. But there’s a key word there. “Our.” David Flash constantly talks about himself in the 3rd person. Most people agree he does it to make it seem like he has employees or other people working with him. If Glen Eisen was going to talk about being motivated by David’s coverage, wouldn’t the quote be “motivated by his coverage?” Or maybe “motivated by their coverage?” “motivated by our coverage” sounds more like a direct quote from David. If county officials did meet and discuss David’s megaphone and his false reporting, that seems like regular business they should be doing to protect our county from The Rage Farmer.
- Between September 2023 and April 2024, County officials initiated at least
seven separate investigations into Flash but not a single one resulted in criminal
charges.
Not sure if this is something that matters. We can all see on the video the way Flash behaves. Seven separate investigations seems reasonable to This Reporter.
- The County spent more than $13,000 in taxpayer funds hiring outside law
firms to block the release of public records lawfully requested by Flash in
furtherance of the conspiracy to restrain Flash’s exercise of his liberty to request
public records for his investigative journalism.
When people make information requests, there can be a lot of work involved with determining what to release. Especially when someone requests records related to investigations into themselves. A lawyer would need to look at the request. And David was not the only person to make information requests the year that the $13k number comes from. He claims it was all spent in a conspiracy against him, but it wasn’t all spent on his request, and it’s perfectly normal to need to pay a lawyer to do the work.
- When Flash exercised his constitutional right to sue for the release of
public information, the County spent more than $27,000 in taxpayer funds on
outside lawyers to defend its unlawful refusal to release the records.
So claim number 20 seems to be summarized as “David sued the county and the county was forced to spend money on an attorney.” Seems like a problem Flash created and is now trying to cry foul. Effing Rage Farmer (FML).
- The conspiracy reached a climax on June 27, 2025, only seventeen days
after the 394th District Court struck down County Judge Evans’s unconstitutional
order that banned Flash from being on county property to exercise all of his
constitutional rights, ruling that Judge Evans’s ban was “without legal authority”
and “violates Flash’s constitutional rights.”
This one is plainly untrue. This Reporter was in the courtroom the day the restriction was lifted. Flash’s lawyer asked the court to remove the restriction that Flash stay 300 feet from a county building. His lawyer went on and on about 1st amendment, yada yada. When he said that the order even restricted Flash from entering the library the judge said something like “People have a 1st Amendment right to go to the library?” “Yes your honor I believe we do.” Judge says “Nice try,” and turns to the prosecuting attorneys. They had no objection to lifting the order and it was declared lifted by the judge. It was never declared to be “without legal authority.” Nor was it ever said the order “violates Flash’s constitutional rights,” by anyone other than Flash. Flash’s lawyer certainly made a bunch of claims like that. The judges response was “Nice try.”
22.Undeterred, Evans directed Chief Deputy Ruiloba to arrest Flash while
Flash was photographing a public commissioner’s court meeting.
This is another strange and false claim that Flash has made many times and was parroted by Carlos Ramos at The Texas Tribune. Judge Evans sat by as Flash disturbed the court repeatedly for over 10 minutes. At any point the judge could have banged the gavel, declared Flash a disturbance, and ordered him removed. Flash had been walking all around the courtroom after being required to photograph from the back. He had been approaching people and talking to them. He was ordered to leave the room and came back. Finally the Chief Deputy approached him and he ran backwards trying to get away. She said he was disturbing the meeting and took him by both arms from behind and was escorting him out of the room when he suddenly turned back towards the Chief Deputy. At that point either he took a dive or the Chief pushed him to the floor. He began screaming and it was after that when Judge Evans finally stood up and ordered him arrested.
23.Sheriff Lopez was present throughout the arrest and approved it as a
bystander supervisor and policy maker because the unlawful arrest was an act in
furtherance of the conspiracy.
Claim 23 is another obviously false statement. The court camera video and body cam videos all show that the Sheriff had left the courtroom. Flash left the courtroom to chase after him trying to get the Sheriff to pose for a picture. Flash went back in and took a dive. It was after that when Sheriff returned to the courtroom. Just look at the video.
- While being handcuffed, Flash was injured from the excessive use of force
that led to his being unlawfully detained for approximately thirty minutes during
which time Flash was unlawfully charged with disorderly conduct under Texas
Penal Code § 42.01.
If Flash had not made the sudden and forceful turn back towards the Chief, she would not have have had to grab his arms too tight. And he wasn’t handcuffed until after taking a dive. The force used looks pretty reasonable to This Reporter.
25.The arrest for disorderly conduct was unlawful because Flash was not put
on notice that he had committed any of the prohibited acts listed in § 42.01, but
more importantly, this criminal charge was dismissed because this statute was
unconstitutional when it is used to target the content of the communication rather
than the conduct of the speaker as held in Owens v. State, No. PD-0075-24, 2025
WL 1587690, at *1 (Tex. Crim. App. June 4, 2025), reh’g denied (July 30, 2025)
that cites a long history of United States Supreme Court cases, for the proposition
that, “The First Amendment generally prohibits the government from prohibiting
speech or expressive conduct. R.A.V. v. St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377, 382 (1992).
Number 25 is telling. There seems to be confusion with this one. 25 claims the Disorderly Conduct charge was dismissed “because this statute was unconstitutional when it is used to target the content of the communication rather than the conduct of the speaker…” The Disorderly Conduct charge that was the result of Flash’s conduct in Commissioners Court was dropped due to “lack of evidence.” Flash caused a physical altercation with the Chief. Many different charges could have resulted, but they just gave him a citation for Disorderly Conduct and let him go. Then, they dropped the charge. Flash claims this was a horrible violation of his rights. But, here they are claiming something about content of communication instead of conduct of the speaker. They are confusing Flash’s charge of Harassment against the Justice of the Peace with the Disorderly Conduct charge. Pretty sloppy.
Flash was charged with Harassment after calling the Justice of the Peace a number of times and cussing her out in a really terrible manner. But during the case, another case set precedent that one cannot be charged with harassment for the content of their speech. When the Harassment charge was filed against Flash, that precedent had not yet been set. Then during the case the precedent was set, and the charges against Flash had to be dropped. This is completely different than the Disorderly Conduct charge they are referencing.
26.Dismissal of all charges occurred because they were based on Flash’s
exercise of his First Amendment rights meaning there was never any probable
cause, and all Defendants committed acts in furtherance of the overall objective of
the conspiracy to restrain or retaliate against Flash’s exercise of these First and
Fifth Amendment rights.
Not true. Flash made some pretty horrific calls to the JP and was lucky to get off on the harassment charge as explained above. There was no conspiracy, or at least no evidence of a conspiracy has been presented as far as This Reporter can tell.
Number 27 begins the individual claims, if you want to call them that.
a. Defendant Evans issued the unconstitutional ban to prevent Flash from
accessing public property, directed Flash’s arrest, and upon information and
belief, publicly defamed Flash by making attributions to others to cause the
publication of various statements that were either slanderous or libelous
per quod (implicated by circumstances in which it is given) or were
slanderous or libelous per se (by itself) that were inherently harmful to
Flash’s personal and business reputation including to a newspaper that
Flash was “crazy” and “not suitable for public settings,” endorsed an
anonymous smear website that exploited the 2011 shooting death of Flash’s
younger brother, and authorized release of body camera footage to that
website that called Flash a fraud, a provocateur, a narcissist, his reporting
and cleaning business were “scams,” a con man, a liar, a fake journalist.
First, the ban was not unconstitutional and was not declared as such. Flash is a public figure. Certainly a County Judge should remain neutral and that’s not great that Judge Evans made those statements. But in This Reporter’s opinion, all the statements are true. I don’t believe Big Bend Times Dot Org has ever said the cleaning business is a scam. And we don’t exploited Micheal Flash’s death, we discuss it. Flash exploits his brother’s death regularly.
b. Defendant Lopez was present during the unlawful arrest and failed to
intervene despite having command authority, failed to discipline any
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Original Complaint Page 11 of 51
subordinate, consented to the release of footage to the smear website, and
presided over a Sheriff’s Office that failed to train deputies on the First
Amendment rights of journalists—rights clearly established since 2017.
Lopez was present after the detention and questioned Flash. They can call this site a smear site all they want, it’s protected speech. Releasing public information is not a crime. Chief wasn’t disciplined because she did a great job that day.
c. Defendant Eisen admitted the County’s actions were “motivated by our
coverage,” refused to discipline his employee for a felonious disclosure of
confidential information, and coordinated the harassment campaign.
That “motivated by OUR coverage” quote again. Very suspicious.
d. Defendant Luedecke attempted to illegally detain Flash by shouting
“You’re detained!” despite having no authority to detain citizens, secretly
sent a law enforcement alert labeling Flash a “First Amendment auditor”
to invite hostility from officers, issued multiple false warrant notices that
blocked Flash’s driver’s license renewal, and filed the baseless criminal
charges that were ultimately dismissed.
You should see the video of Flash’s FB live. His behavior was strange. The criminal charge of Harassment was not baseless, Flash was lucky. None of those claims seem to have any merit.
e. Defendant Ruiloba arrested Flash without probable cause, dug her
fingernails into Flash’s forearm leaving documented abrasions, and applied
handcuffs so tightly they caused wrist injuries.
She was escorting him out of the courtroom after telling him he was disturbing the court. There’s no evidence they planned to arrest him once they removed him from court. It wasn’t until Flash made the sudden turn back toward the Chief, when he started the altercation, that she had to grab a hold of him. All a result of Flash’s actions.
f. Defendant Merritt filed bogus criminal reports and enforced the
extrajudicial ban by threatening Flash near his own home.
Now they are just acting like bitches. “Extrajudicial ban.” Eff off that’s BS. (FML)
g. Defendant Giesbrecht participated in excessive force and failed to
intervene.
There was no excessive force which means there was nothing to intervene about.
h. Defendant Dennison disclosed confidential law enforcement
information on three separate occasions—constituting a third-degree felony
under Texas Penal Code § 39.06. First, on October 8, 2023, Dennison
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Original Complaint Page 12 of 51
revealed to Flash that she had accessed body camera footage of him through
her job. Second, on or about February 2, 2024, Dennison used her login
credentials to access Flash’s sealed DPS records and disclosed his nondisclosed mugshots to a public Facebook forum to damage his reputation.
Third, Dennison submitted a defamatory written statement to county
officials—authored on county time—describing Flash as mentally unstable,
speculating he was carrying a concealed weapon in disguise, and comparing
him to “a spoiled toddler.”
Our publisher’s understanding is that the records are not sealed and anyone could request them. We don’t have any way to verify that. How do they know it was her that released the mugshots to the Alpine WTF Happened FB group? Not sure that’s really a crime if they are public records. The statement “describing Flash as mentally unstable, speculating he was carrying a concealed weapon in disguise, and comparing him to ‘a spoiled toddler.'” seems fine. Flash often appears mentally unstable. Tough to argue against that. Flash has posted videos to FB of himself twirling a pistol on his finger with total disregard for gun safety. The spoiled toddler reference is spot on.
The rest of the document seems to be the same false claims rehashed over and over. In This Reporter’s opinion, the entire suit is bull crap (FML). And Flash surely knows this as well. But he will get to generate many stories about how much our county is being forced to spend on pushing back. Flash seems to be very proud of the huge expense he has been to our county. It’s disgusting.
