A judge will soon decide whether to grant a protective order to a neighbor of Slate Ridge, an unpermitted tactical training facility in West Pawlet. The order was sought against the facility’s owner, Daniel Banyai.
At a court hearing on Wednesday in Rutland County’s civil division, Mandy Hulett sought to prove that Banyai has threatened her two or more times, causing her to fear for her safety.
In testimony heard by Judge Helen Toor, Hulett pieced together a timeline of threats and examples of doxing, starting in October 2020. Almost all of those instances involved posts from Slate Ridge’s Facebook page.
One example included a widely shared post in which Slate Ridge listed the names of Hulett and her husband and the address of Hulett’s trucking business.
Other examples of threats included a video, posted to Facebook, in which a car, with “Hulett Trucking” written on the door in marker, was shot through during a “vehicle assault” class held at Slate Ridge. Hulett said commenters on the post wrote that they “wished we were sitting in the back seat.”
Banyai also posted a photo of a car identical to Hulett’s daughter’s, and requested that his followers find a car like it to “shoot up and then blow up” at the next vehicle assault class.
Hulett’s lawyer, Pietro Lynn, led her through the testimony.
“What, if anything, has this made you feel in terms of your safety?” Lynn asked Hulett.
Hulett said the threats have been “relentless.”
“We’re looking to hopefully put an end to that, because it’s our kids’ safety — our kids ride up and down the road on horses, four-wheelers, whatever,” she said, her voice breaking. “We’re just looking for some sort of assistance.”
Much of the argument at Wednesday’s hearing revolved around whether Facebook posts, open to the public and with a general audience in mind, can be considered direct threats.
Jill Barger, the attorney for Banyai, argued that the October post did not apply to Vermont’s stalking law, and objected to its use as evidence.
“It has to be directed to her personally,” Barger said. “It was not sent to her. It was not addressed to her. She did not receive it in any kind of email box. She had to go out and look for it.”
Lynn pushed back.
“This is a posting that is made available to the world at large,” he said. “Everybody who may be surfing the net may come across it. When somebody posts like this, and in particular with specific threats made toward certain people that ought to qualify under the statute as a communication that would make someone fearful.”
Toor allowed the post to be admitted, saying the threat was directed toward Hulett.
“That’s what the law is talking about,” she said.
In the hearing, Hulett described a post she made to Facebook in the fall that responded to posts on the Slate Ridge page.
“I was just worried,” she said. “I was just concerned that we’re going to end up being a statistic. So I put a post on there saying if we disappear, you know who did it. So that’s how concerned I am for our safety.”
Banyai’s attorney, Barger, asked him whether he intended to cause harm to the Huletts. “No,” he replied. He gave the same answer when she asked, “Did you ever mean to threaten them?”
Under questioning from Lynn, Banyai said he does not own or operate Slate Ridge. He said only his family comes to use the shooting facility, and he does not offer any classes on his land. Banyai said he is not involved in posting on Slate Ridge’s Facebook page, and he could not instruct anyone else to remove posts.
A brief dispute occurred in which Lynn pressed Banyai to answer who, then, posts on Slate Ridge’s page. When Toor told Banyai he had to answer, he said, “The lady’s name is Martha Dean,” and he described her as “a friend.”
Banyai can be seen and heard operating the camera in videos posted to the page.
Rutland Superior Court Judge David Barra has already granted Hulett and her two children a temporary order related to stalking, filed on Dec. 28, after he found that an affidavit supported a finding that Banyai had made threats against her.
Two types of protective orders exist in Vermont: temporary ex parte orders, which can be served immediately, and final orders, which result from a hearing after both sides have been given an opportunity to make a case.
Hulett’s temporary order requires Banyai to “stay away” from her and her children.
“‘Stay away’ means do not talk to, telephone, text, email, or use any other electronic communication to make contact, and do not post to them or about them on social media, and do not ask other people to give them messages,” the order says.
Banyai has had protective orders filed against him before. In September 2019, Judge Denise Watson of New York Family Court in Dutchess County issued a temporary order of protection against Banyai, under which he was ordered to surrender any and all firearms and refrain from obtaining new ones, according to court documents obtained by VTDigger.
A 2020 law enforcement bulletin from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives indicates that Banyai still unlawfully held a “large cache of firearms and ammunition.”
Michelle Donnelly, assistant professor of law at Vermont Law School, said Vermont protective orders in civil cases do not usually require the person receiving the order to give up weapons.
“There is no specific Vermont law that states any defendant with a current stalking order cannot possess a firearm,” she said. “It has to be a part of the court’s individual order for that specific defendant after evaluating the facts in that specific case.”
Hulett asked for Banyai to stop posting on social media and continue the protections named in the temporary order, but did not specifically ask the court to ban Banyai’s access to firearms in the hearing Wednesday.
Federal law bans access to firearms in abuse orders, a subclass of protective order that applies only when the plaintiff and the defendant are “intimate partners,” Donnelly said.
“This federal ban would not apply to Vermont civil stalking orders, because in those orders the parties are not intimate partners,” she said.
The judge said she expected to have a decision within days.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Neighbor seeks stalking order against Slate Ridge owner.