Defamation trial begins for blogger sued by drag performer

COEUR d’ALENE — The drag performer who is suing a local blogger took the stand Monday.

Post Falls resident Eric Posey performed June 11, 2022, at the Pride in the Park celebration in Coeur d’Alene.

The next day, North Idaho blogger Summer Bushnell published an edited video of Posey’s performance on her Facebook page, The Bushnell Report. Posey’s pelvic area is blurred out in the edited video.

Bushnell claimed that Posey exposed himself to the crowd and called for Posey’s arrest, urging the public to contact police and the Idaho Attorney General’s Office. The video garnered many thousands of views and hundreds of comments.

The Coeur d’Alene City Prosecutor’s Office reviewed the edited video, as well as other unedited videos and photos. Prosecutors announced in July 2022 that the evidence shows Posey did not violate any state or local law.

Posey sued Bushnell in September 2022, seeking damages in excess of $10,000, saying she defamed him. The suit contends that Bushnell knew her accusations were false because she possessed and had viewed the unedited footage of Posey’s performance, which showed no nudity.

“Ms. Bushnell’s false statements changed his life and his lifestyle,” said Wendy J. Olson, one of the attorneys representing Posey. “He moved to a new location in Kootenai County because he was worried someone would find out where he lived.”

Bushnell’s attorney, Colton Boyles, said Bushnell is a journalist who reported on the drag performance, though she did not witness it firsthand.

“When Ms. Bushnell received still photographs and videos that she reviewed in her capacity as a journalist covering these news events, she made opinions about what she saw on those still photos and the video she received,” he said.

Boyles said that his client believes Posey exposed himself.

“Ms. Bushnell has stood by her statement, to this day, that she believes she saw exposure based upon the photo and the videos she reviewed,” he said.

Posey, 35, said he moved from Florida to North Idaho in 2021 in order to be closer to his goddaughter and her family. But he decided to make Kootenai County his permanent home for the same reason that many others do.

“The constitutional rights that you have here, I stand for,” he testified Monday.

Posey said he wore five layers of clothing on his lower body during his performance: Underwear woven from duct tape and gaffer’s tape, two pairs of tights, a pair of “boy short” style underwear and a leotard on top. He said he wears so many layers to prevent any kind of wardrobe malfunction.

“Everyone performs to their own comfort,” he said. “I like coverage and security.”

Jurors watched two recordings of Posey’s performance, each taken from a slightly different vantage point. Both videos show Posey dancing on the stage at the City Park bandshell, clad in a colorful leotard with black shorts visible underneath, while the crowd cheered. Neither video showed nudity.

Dr. Sarah Lynch, director of the North Idaho Pride Alliance, also took the stand Monday. She said she had befriended Posey long before his performance at Pride in the Park and before she took the helm at NIPA.

The morning after Posey’s performance, Lynch said she got a call from a Coeur d’Alene police officer who was trying to reach Posey to investigate the allegations that he had exposed himself. Meanwhile, news outlets across the region and the country began reporting on the police investigation.

As Bushnell’s allegations spread, Lynch said she feared for Posey’s safety.

“There were comments calling for the death penalty, people calling him a pedophile and a groomer, people saying, ‘You find a rope, I’ll get a tree’ or, ‘That’s what 2A is for,'” she said.

She said the allegations took a heavy toll on Posey, even after he was cleared of any wrongdoing.

“He brought positivity and light and laughter to everyone around him,” she said. “After that, a lot of my interactions with him, he was panicked over the false allegations. He became a person who was afraid to go out in public. He’s nervous when he’s in public. He tries to make himself invisible.”

The trial continues today.