Conspiracy theories were plentiful over the weekend following the arrest and subsequent release of Leonard “Leroy Truth” Filipowski in Union City New Jersey for aggravated assault on police lieutenant Glenn Gaston Sr.
Filipowski was arrested Friday afternoon after staging a protest at the Union City School Board building. While under the guise of “filling out a form,” Filipowski sat in the lobby and attempted to interact with patrons to attempt to tell them about his accusations of abuse against a teacher within the school system.
The YouTuber has a long-standing dispute with Union City mayor Brian Stack dating back to 2024 when Filipowski was removed and later arrested at a city council meeting in Union City. That arrest spawned a gathering of YouTubers in 2024, from surrounding states in protest of the mayor.
Since then, Filipowski has been a constant detractor of the mayor, making abuse and corruption allegations against Mayor Stack and anyone in his orbit. Filipowski has gone so far as reportedly purchasing $10,000.00 in Facebook advertising to promote his anti-Stack viewpoints to members of the community.
Naturally, accusations of Stack’s involvement in the arrest started during Filipowski’s stay at the Union City police department prior to this transfer to the hospital than the Union County jail.
It was alleged during the livestream provided by The Exposure Report and restreamed by Filipowski’s editor on the YouTuber’s own channel, that Mayor Stack had called Gaston and given the order to take Filipowski in on trumped up charges.
While no proof was given, no source was stated, and the line was delivered with sarcasm, it was the first of many that blurred the lines between reality and the truth.
The same livestream would provide the accusation that Filipowski’s life was in danger if he was transported to the Union County Jail as Mayor Stack had allegedly previously indicated that he would “take care of” Filipowski if he ever faced incarceration within the facility.
Things exploded following the release of the 360 degree camera footage that had recorded Filipowski’s arrest on Friday and had been released by police to the Exposure Report along with his belongings at Filipowski’s request.
While the footage clearly shows Filipowski’s arm striking the police officer as Filipowski struggled, conspiracy theories abounded in the way the officer fell. First Amendment auditors across YouTube jumped on the footage declaring that the officer purposely fell to the ground in an attempt to indict Filipowski on felony charges.
Others claimed, without direct proof, that the officer had previously injured himself while off duty and had been denied insurance coverage for his injuries. Friday’s fall, according to these accounts, was to stage an injury to the same body part in order to gain insurance coverage of those previous injuries.
The allegations of “flopping” continued throughout the weekend with such headlines declaring Gaston as an “insane” or “rogue” police officer who set up an innocent YouTuber who was only there to report the truth.
Perhaps the strangest account of all came from Filipowski himself, who described his disbelief at the officer’s supposed over exaggerated fall, despite the fact that his 360 degree camera showed that he was looking away from the officer at the time of the fall.
On the same livestream, as he stood in the cold outside of the Union County Jail, he went through his standard accusations against Mayor Stack, the Union City police department and anyone associated with either.
They hype, of course, was mainly for clicks and views and has resulted in record viewership for Filipowski’s channel. Others have had mixed success for the same topic as dozens of YouTubers have come together in real and feigned outrage over the treatment of the Connecticut based YouTuber.
Update: The hype surrounding Filipowski’s arrest funneled an extraordinary amount of cash donations to the newly created GoFundMe campaign dedicated to his legal defense.
As of Sunday evening, over $8,000.00 was taken in by the campaign as the fund was immediately propelled into second place for the year in our crowdsourcing tracking.
We’ll have an updated report on Filipowski’s financial take in tomorrow’s edition of Auditing Insanity.
