Fans of YouTuber Craig Hendry have been greeted with silence over the past week following the YouTuber’s loss of his appeals court challenge of his 2024 conviction in Vermillion County, Indiana, on felony stalking and misdemeanor charges.
According to court documents the charges stemmed from multiple visits by Hendry to the Clinton, Indiana, City Hall in 2022 and 2023 where he targeted the assistant to Clinton Mayor Jack Gilfoy, identified as “P.K.” with unwanted interactions.
The court records showed that Hendry made his visits to the Clinton city hall a regular part of his YouTube channel and filmed himself regularly harassing P.K.
At different points over months of encounters, knocking and jiggling her office door, filming her through her blinds, waiting for her to get off work and following her to her car, hurling accusations at her and making repeated unwanted phone calls where he continued his verbal harassment.
Hendry was not alone as he shared the phone numbers to the mayor’s office and police department and encouraged his fans to redress their government. This resulted in thousands of harassing phone calls and multiple death threats directed at P.K.
The YouTuber was changed with multiple felonies and misdemeanors related to his videos and conduct at the city hall in October of 2023 but continued to encourage his fans to redress their government by calling the mayor’s office.
Hendry went on trial in 2024 and was convicted of Level 6 felony stalking; Class B misdemeanor aiding, inducing, or causing harassment of Clinton city employees; and Class B misdemeanor aiding, inducing, or causing harassment.
The aiding, inducing, or causing harassment conviction was vacated due to concerns over double jeopardy.
Hendry almost immediately started a GoFundMe campaign to fund hiring a lawyer for his appeal and the appeal itself eventually moved forward with attorney Kay A. Beehler representing the YouTuber.
In his appeal, Hendry’s defense downplayed his actions towards P.K. as “harassment” and not actual stalking. His defense found a strict definition of harassment and applied it to his actions to attempt to show that he was wrongfully convicted of the felony offense.
The appeals court rejected this explanation, stating:
“The record shows that Hendry not only visited P.K.’s office on numerous occasions but also camped outside her door after she refused to answer his knocks. He also “bang[ed]” on P.K.’s door and “jangl[ed]” the doorknob, filmed P.K. through her closed blinds, and loudly accused her of having a sexual relationship with the mayor while just outside her door. Tr. Vol. IV, p. 39. After Hendry was banned from city hall, he twice waited outside in the parking lot. On one of those occasions, he followed P.K. to her car as she was being escorted by police, yelled at police when they tried to stop him, and then posted a video of that interaction on YouTube. Hendry also featured P.K. in numerous other videos, using an image of her face as a video thumbnail, making accusations about her, and calling her the mayor’s “little play toy.”
Hendry does not discuss these specific instances. He makes only the general assertions, without further analysis, that P.K. was “never targeted by Hendry” and that his contacts were “appropriate in context” and “tangential” to his attempts to speak to the mayor. Appellants Br., p. 12; Appellant’s Reply Br., pp. 5-6. These claims are contrary to the evidence showing that Hendry often sought out P.K. specifically, without reference to the mayor. He requested to speak with her by name and asked other employees questions about her. He also remarked, “There she is,” when P.K. emerged from city hall the day he waited in the parking lot, suggesting that he was waiting specifically for P.K.
Without further explanation from Hendry, we fail to see how conduct like filming P.K. through her blinds, banging on her door, and suggesting she had an improper relationship with the mayor was appropriate in the context of his activities at city hall. Therefore, we find the evidence supports the conclusion that Hendry harassed P.K. for the purposes of his stalking conviction.
The record also supports the other elements of stalking. As to P.K.’s actual fear as a result of Hendry’s conduct, she testified she was “afraid of him” and felt “threatened” by him “to this day.” Tr. Vol. IV, pp. 39, 43. She explained that because of his harassment, she no longer walks to work by herself, was scared to take her grandchildren in public, and began taking medication for anxiety and depression. The record also reveals that P.K. began routinely locking her door, requested a police escort to her car, and was too afraid to drive straight home after her confrontation with Hendry in the parking lot. Despite this, Hendry argues that P.K. was merely “an uneasy person,” as she remarked once in an early police interview; however, this ignores P.K.’s other testimony explaining her fear. Id. at 89. Essentially, Hendry asks us to reweigh the evidence, which we will not do.”
Hendry also admitted that the actions taken by his followers was indeed harassment; however, despite providing his followers directions on how to contact the mayor’s office, he claimed that he was not responsible for the actions of his followers.
The Court also rejected this argument:
Hendry insists the evidence does not sufficiently show that he knowingly aided his viewers in harassing the city employees, and alternatively, he claims that his conduct was constitutionally protected. “[W]hile we approach a typical sufficiency challenge with great deference to the factfinder, to the extent that [it] implicates principles of freedom of speech, our supreme court has held that such ‘[d]eferential review . . . creates an unacceptable risk of under-protecting speech.’” Haberkorn v. State, 205 N.E.3d 253, 257 (Ind. Ct. App. 2023) (quoting Brewington v. State, 7 N.E.3d 946, 955 (Ind. 2014)). Therefore, when presented with such situations, we “independently examine the record ‘to assure ourselves that the [conviction] does not constitute a forbidden intrusion on the field of free expression.’” Id. (same). After such examination, we are unpersuaded by Hendry’s sufficiency and constitutional arguments.
The court ultimately upheld all of Hendry’s convictions and ruled that his actions were not constitutionally protected.
Hendry served out his sentence for both convictions earlier this year; he was seeking only the overturning of his convictions and no monetary damages.
The YouTuber’s return to the news brought no attention to his multiple GoFundMe campaigns. Leonard “Leroy Truth” Filipowski’s Stand with Leroy Truth Against Injustice campaign won Tuesday’s crowd sourcing title with a $778.00 take, followed by SeanPaul “Long Island Audit” Reyes’ Support The Fight Against Tyranny & Corruption campaign, which pulled in $50.00 in new donations.
No other campaigns that we follow saw new donations for Tuesday.
Craig Hendry is next due in court on Wednesday for a final motions hearing/conference in Greene county, Indiana, where he is facing misdemeanor charges of making a false complaint against a law enforcement officer.
Special thanks to Reddit User TitoTotino for alerting us to this news story.
