THEY TOOK MY FREEDOM. THEY TOOK MY VEHICLES. NOW A FEDERAL COURT HAS PUT A TWO-YEAR LEASH ON MY JOURNALISM. YOU'LL NEVER READ A STORY OF OUTRAGEOUS NONSTOP CORRUPTION LIKE THIS!

My name is Matthew Reardon, also known professionally as Don Matthews.

I am a United States Marine Corps veteran, investigative journalist, civil-rights activist, pro se litigant, and founder of We The People News.

I am asking for help because what began years ago as a fight against local government misconduct has now followed me across state lines, into federal courthouses, into jail cells, and quite literally onto the streets.

Today I am fighting appeals and civil-rights cases while trying to survive without reliable transportation, after two vehicles were taken from me in separate encounters with the same city whose police conduct I am challenging in federal court.

And in August 2026, a federal court imposed a two-year sentence of unsupervised probation containing a condition that restricts my physical presence at federal courthouses throughout Louisiana and requires me to give the United States Marshals Service two business days' advance notice before appearing there unless I have what the court considers "legitimate business."

I am a journalist.

Covering government and courts is my business.

That sentence came after a federal prosecution arising from an encounter with the U.S. Marshals Service at the John M. Shaw U.S. Courthouse in Lafayette, Louisiana.

And the story of how I ended up convicted is something every American concerned about government power should know.

THE U.S. MARSHALS BUILT A FILE ON ME BEFORE I WAS EVER CHARGED

Before my August 25, 2025 arrest, I discovered through Freedom of Information Act records that the U.S. Marshals Service had been circulating information about me because of my courthouse journalism.

The records showed alerts carrying my name, photograph, driver's-license information and other identifying details being distributed among Marshals and courthouse personnel.

The subject of one government communication identified me specifically in connection with my First Amendment activity.

I had not been convicted of committing some violent federal crime.

I was recording government officials.

I was publishing.

I was asking questions.

I was doing journalism.

Three days before the encounter that ultimately produced my federal prosecution, the Marshals Service finally responded to my FOIA request with heavily redacted records confirming what had been happening behind the scenes.

Then, on August 25, I went to the Lafayette federal courthouse.

I stood outside protesting the U.S. Marshals Service.

I contend that Marshals directed and waved me toward the very doorway that the government would later accuse me of obstructing.

When Deputy U.S. Marshal Hayden Nugent subsequently ordered me to move my camera equipment, I moved it.

I was arrested anyway.

I was taken to the ground. My equipment was damaged. I have alleged under oath that I was mistreated after being taken into custody.

And then one of the most important pieces of objective evidence disappeared.

THE GOVERNMENT FAILED TO PRESERVE THE COURTHOUSE VIDEO

The federal courthouse was covered by surveillance cameras.

Those cameras could have shown exactly where I stood, exactly what the Marshals told me to do, whether I was directed toward that doorway, whether the doorway was actually obstructed, and whether I complied when ordered to move.

The government acknowledged during the case that the relevant lobby surveillance footage had not been preserved.

All of it.

The most neutral evidence in the entire prosecution was gone.

The government was left prosecuting me using, among other things, footage that I had recorded myself.

Meanwhile, the communications between the Marshals Service and courthouse personnel became serious enough that a federal magistrate judge recused herself, writing that an objective and reasonable observer could believe she was predisposed to find me guilty of the offense later charged.

Think about that.

A federal judge recognized the appearance of predisposition.

The government did not preserve the surveillance footage.

The Marshals had circulated alerts about me before my arrest.

I had obtained those records through FOIA immediately before the confrontation.

Yet I was still prosecuted and convicted.

THEN CAME THE SENTENCE

On August 7, 2026, I appeared for sentencing.

The maximum incarceration for the petty offense was thirty days.

I told the court I would rather serve every remaining day of a finite sentence than accept an open-ended restriction on my ability to enter a courthouse and perform my work as a journalist.

Instead, the court imposed two years of unsupervised probation.

One of the special conditions says I cannot be physically present at the John M. Shaw federal courthouse — or any other federal courthouse in Louisiana or the surrounding federal grounds — unless I have "legitimate business" there and give the U.S. Marshals Service at least two business days' advance notice.

The same agency that circulated alerts about my journalism now receives advance notice before I can enter a federal courthouse covered by the sentence.

My attorney objected to that condition on the record.

I am appealing.

This is no longer simply about one arrest.

It raises a much larger question:

Can federal law enforcement identify a journalist because of his protected activity, circulate alerts about him, confront him at courthouses, lose the most important surveillance evidence from his prosecution, and then emerge from the case with a court order requiring that journalist to notify that same agency before entering federal courthouses?

I believe Americans deserve an answer.

WHILE I WAS FIGHTING THAT CASE, GALVESTON TOOK MY SECOND VEHICLE

The federal courthouse case is not the only battle.

On June 22, 2026, I was in Galveston, Texas, recording police officers conducting a traffic stop from a public vantage point.

After the stop was over, officers ran my license plate.

They followed me when I left.

I was arrested over an expired registration.

According to my sworn filing, one of the arresting officers acknowledged that if I had not been recording police, they would not have followed me and made the arrest.

My 2016 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport was towed.

At that point I was homeless. The vehicle was not simply transportation. It contained my belongings and legal materials and was effectively my shelter while I fought these cases.

Within days the towing charges were already hundreds of dollars.

It was the second vehicle Galveston had taken from me.

THE FIRST VEHICLE WAS TAKEN WHILE I SAT IN JAIL FOR ELEVEN MONTHS

The first happened after my August 2023 arrest in Galveston.

I was arrested for DWI.

My blood alcohol result was 0.00%.

I nevertheless remained incarcerated for approximately eleven months while a Mississippi hold and other proceedings kept me locked up.

During that incarceration my vehicle was impounded and eventually auctioned.

Friends were present and available to take custody of the vehicle.

I never got it back.

The DWI prosecution was eventually dismissed.

Then something extraordinary happened in the federal civil-rights litigation that followed.

In July 2026, U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Edison examined the record.

Regarding my vehicle, he concluded that because the impoundment was unreasonable, I had stated a constitutional claim for unreasonable seizure.

Regarding Officer William Osteen's testimony, the judge wrote:

"The record shows that Osteen lied to Judge Tollison. That is disturbing."

Those are not my words.

Those are the words of a federal judicial officer.

And despite those findings, qualified immunity was recommended, and the defendants escaped personal liability.

So understand where that leaves me:

My first vehicle was seized and auctioned while I sat in jail.

A federal judge later concluded the impoundment was unreasonable.

That same judicial opinion stated that the record showed an officer lied to another judge.

Then, while I was actively litigating that very case and continuing to record Galveston police, officers stopped me again and my replacement vehicle was taken too.

I believe the circumstances surrounding that second seizure constitute retaliation, and I am pursuing those facts through the courts.

I am not asking anyone reading this to blindly accept my conclusions.

I am asking you to look at the records.

THIS IS WHY I DOCUMENT EVERYTHING

For years I have heard variations of the same response:

"That couldn't have happened."

"The police wouldn't do that."

"A judge would stop it."

"The federal government wouldn't allow that."

So I started saving everything.

Court orders.

Body-camera footage.

Police reports.

FOIA responses.

Recorded telephone calls.

Laboratory reports.

Transcripts.

Emails.

Federal filings.

Judicial opinions.

The evidence now fills an enormous archive.

That archive is becoming my book:

AMERICAN INJUSTICE

American Injustice is my nonfiction, first-person account of what happens when an ordinary citizen refuses to stop documenting government misconduct.

It begins years before the federal courthouse case.

It includes Mississippi arrests and prosecutions, banishment orders, involuntary commitments, incarceration, destroyed or missing evidence, my imprisonment at Parchman, the Galveston prosecution, both vehicle seizures, federal courthouse encounters, the U.S. Marshals FOIA records, the federal prosecution, and the appeals now underway.

The names are real.

The cases are real.

The documents are real.

And whenever possible, the reader will be able to examine the underlying evidence.

HOW IT STARTED

This did not begin in Louisiana or Texas.

It reaches back to Oxford and Lafayette County, Mississippi.

In 2017 I was peacefully exercising constitutional rights outside the Lafayette County Courthouse when an encounter with law enforcement ended with me being tackled and arrested.

That became the first domino.

What followed over the ensuing years included repeated arrests, two separate banishment conditions, incarceration, civil litigation, disputed testimony, involuntary psychiatric commitments, missing evidence, financial destruction, separation from my children, and ultimately imprisonment on a sentence that was later vacated.

I spent years trying to get courts to examine what happened.

Instead of disappearing, the conflict expanded.

From Mississippi.

To Texas.

To Louisiana.

From local deputies.

To police departments.

To federal law enforcement.

And finally to the United States Marshals Service and a federal prosecution.

WHAT THIS HAS COST

I have lost years of my life to incarceration and litigation.

I have lost transportation — twice.

I have lost property.

I have spent periods homeless.

I have been separated from my children.

I have spent thousands of hours researching, writing motions, requesting records, reviewing footage and building cases largely without the resources available to the government attorneys and agencies on the other side.

I continue doing investigative journalism through We The People News because the documentation matters beyond my individual cases.

If government can do this to one person while the evidence is being recorded and published in real time, imagine what happens to people who do not know how to file a FOIA request, preserve a record, litigate pro se, or put a camera on what government is doing.

WHY I NEED HELP RIGHT NOW

I am now dealing with active appellate and civil-rights litigation while trying to rebuild basic stability.

Donations will help cover:

• Federal and state appellate litigation expenses.

• Filing, printing, mailing and service costs.

• Transcripts and certified court records.

• Depositions and litigation-related expenses.

• FOIA and public-records requests.

• Transportation following the loss of my second vehicle.

• Temporary housing and basic necessities while I continue working.

• Equipment necessary for investigative journalism.

• Hosting and operating We The People News.

• Completing, editing and publishing American Injustice.

• Preserving and publishing the underlying documentary record so other people can examine the evidence themselves.

The government has attorneys, investigators, vehicles, offices, databases and essentially unlimited taxpayer-funded resources.

I have a laptop, a camera, court records, public support, and a refusal to disappear.

I want the people who help keep this fight alive to eventually see the entire story.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO TAKE MY WORD FOR IT

Much of the underlying record is already public.

My investigative reporting and supporting documents are being published through:

We The People News: www.wtpnews.org

and

Flagship Site: donmatthews.live

As a way of paying it forward in taking proactive next steps, I have also designed the Civil Rights Hub which can be accessed anytime at no cost, EVER at CIVILRIGHTSHUB.ORG

The litigation record, FOIA documents, recordings and source material will continue being published as the cases and appeals move forward.

Read it.

Watch it.

Check my claims.

Then decide for yourself.

That is the difference between propaganda and evidence.

WHAT I AM ASKING

If you can donate, please donate.

If you cannot donate, sharing this fundraiser can be just as important.

Send it to journalists.

Send it to veterans.

Send it to attorneys.

Send it to civil-liberties organizations.

Send it to anyone who believes that badges, robes and government letterhead should never place a person above the Constitution.

I raised my right hand as a United States Marine and swore to support and defend the Constitution.

That oath did not expire when I left the Marine Corps.

I have paid an extraordinary price for refusing to walk away from it.

I am still here.

I am still documenting.

I am still appealing.

I am still publishing.

And I intend to make sure the complete record survives, no matter how uncomfortable that record becomes for the institutions involved.

Thank you for helping me continue.

Matthew Reardon / Don Matthews

United States Marine Corps Veteran

Founder & Publisher, We The People News

Author, American Injustice

https://www.donmatthews.live

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