YouTube activist and influencer James “James Freeman” Springer made his first comments on his May arrest and the circumstances he found himself in after his jailing and YouTube demonetization on his Fake News Network channel before quietly privatizing the video.
Springer was arrested in May after a domestic violence incident in his home that resulted in a low speed police chase that ended with Springer in a Pima County, Arizona, jail. He was held for weeks before his fans banded together to gift him nearly $70,000.00 through a GoFundMe to pay his bond and to get the YouTuber on his feet while he faced charges from the incident.
Springer started by thanking his fans for standing by him while he was gone:
Yes, good to see you guys. I don’t have a whole lot to say right now, but I um uh just to my smaller audience here, I wanted to say thank you.
Um I was uh Surprised to see so many people support me a few months ago when there were some pretty extreme um accusations and I thought at the moment when that happened I said you know what I’m I’m totally on my own and that’s okay uh because this is one of those situations where you’re you’re guilty until proven innocent and I understand that because I’ve seen how it goes.
I’ve seen how the system treats it and even more so I’ve seen how the public treats it. And um there are a few things that typically when you’re accused of You’re definitely guilty until proven innocent, especially in the eyes of the public.
So uh to see so many people say you know what, I’m gonna withhold judgment until we find out what really happened I didn’t expect that. I really didn’t I was really just okay and content with you know what? It’s alright.
In a year or two, everything will flush out and we’ll see, but I can’t thank you guys enough for the outpouring support for me and for my family because this wasn’t just done to me. The accusations that were made were not even made by um my family. They were made by the government.
And so for those of you who also withheld your judgment on my wife and my daughter, and and others in my family, I sincerely appreciate it. I’m not gonna talk a whole lot more about it. When it’s over, when it’s completely over, which it it probably will be very, very soon.
Springer is facing the following charges from the incident:
28-622.01 UNLAW FLIGHT FROM LAW ENF VEH F5
13-2904A DISORDERLY CONDUCT M1
13-2904A DISORDERLY CONDUCT M1
13-1202A1 THREAT-INTIM W/INJ-DMGE PROP M1
13-1202A1 THREAT-INTIM W/INJ-DMGE PROP M1
13-1602A1 Criminal Damage amount >= $250 and < $1,000 M1
His trial in Pima County, Arizona, is set of November 10 and 12, 2026.
On the recent wave of demonetizations that have hit the first amendment auditing category on YouTube and his reasoning for going quiet on YouTube at the start of the year:
And I decided that I wasn’t going to come back to it until I ran a when I first started doing YouTube I owned uh owned a business And I made a really good living with it. And I didn’t start making YouTube videos for money. I did it because I saw some things that I thought were wrong And I just wanted to share my voice, my opinion, and it just so happened that that a lot of people kind of resonated with it and started watching.
And then it started making revenue. And during COVID, I lost my business and I started making YouTube content for money. And uh everything changed when I started doing it for money.
And it became gross So I I I will go back to I I’m always gonna have something to say about government and so I’ll go back to saying it publicly and publishing it on YouTube and it may And it may or may not even be monetized, but I want to make damn sure that when I do it, I never, ever, ever publish a video for money That if I’m publishing a video It’s because I I feel like I’ve got something to say and you can agree or you can disagree that I’ve got something to say But I don’t ever want it to be for money ever again And that was the decision that I made when I set my channel to private Way back in February of this year. I figured it would probably take at least a year for me to get financially back on my feet again, running it at least two businesses doing some other stuff to make sure that that my money came from being productive in the productive sector in the world in the world And that if YouTube or making content made me money on top of that, then great. But it should it it cannot be uh I for me I it’s gross I can’t do it.
I cannot make YouTube content, especially like this for money. At least not for that purpose. And I think that I think that really that’s a big part of the reason that there’s corruption and such disgusting behavior within government too, is because it everything starts becoming for money.
I’m working even harder on rebuilding businesses and supporting my family and taking care of my family And not just financially, but a lot of other things as well that that slipped for me over the years. And, you know, that was another thing when I first started YouTube. It was uh I mean, e even w the stuff that I dealt with with government corruption, like my whole goal in life was nothing more or less than Take care of my family and try to be good to and try to be a decent person to all the other people around me as well.
With the court order preventing contact between Springer and his family was lifted last month, he is now free to move his family to Texas, as he previously told the court his intentions to do so.
He continued, addressing his future, he said:
And um So, I mean my my absolute first goal has to be to take care of my family and and we’re still we’re doing a lot better than we were. Um I’m doing a lot better than I was, uh, but I’m not there yet. We’re not there yet.
And and so Um, I’ll be back eventually. I Wanted to say how much I sincerely appreciate you guys though. I didn’t expect it at all.
I’ll tell you what when I sat in that jail cell after all of this kind of happened after I had disappeared for months and I was sitting in that jail cell and I I didn’t even realize all the charges that they were gonna throw on me. I didn’t have the slightest clue and when they Started reading the charges. I was shocked.
I was blown away and honestly man I’ve never been I I genuinely I’ve never I’ve really never been more hurt. It is what it is But um I knew I knew in that moment I was gonna be alone for a really long time And that if I were to survive this and come out of it, it was going to be completely and totally alone And so days later to and Roy and a couple other people reached out and said, hey man, we want to help you You know, the the people will get behind you and I was like, no, do you see what the accusations are? Like there are a few things that you can accuse a man of.
And once it’s been accused, especially publicly on paper, um like Nobody wants to see what actually happened. The accusations out there, it’s you know. Um and so I told him I was like no just just Forget it, leave it alone.
I understand I’m on my own and until this case is over and I prove my innocence, that’s that. And when I when Roy decided to do what he did anyways and publicly tell people what was going on, it I can’t I can’t even describe to you how humbling it was. Um And I’m a grown man and I hadn’t cried in about probably 15, maybe 20 years.
I don’t think a tear has come out of my eye. And and when I sat there in jail and saw what you guys had done for me, what Roy had done for me. Um it was Incredibly humbling.
I’m uh Rebuilding and and getting my getting my affairs back in order and I appreciate all of you and I love you and I thank you And I can’t thank you enough. There’s not enough words to say. I don’t know.
I don’t know how I could even possibly express it with words. But I appreciate you guys. Thank you. And I’ll see you again soon.
Springer has made $72,940.00 as of Sunday afternoon from a GoFundMe campaign organized by friend Roy “Pigs Under Pressure” Tripoloni months after the campaign met its goal of freeing Springer from jail.
Activity continued on Saturday, with $30.00 in new donations to the fund, which was overshadowed by $3,230.00 brought in by Aidan “Turtleboy” Kearney to win the crowd sourcing title for the day.
Kearney won Sunday as well, with $4,682.00 in new donations to his GiveSendGo campaign.
SeanPaul “Long Island Audit” Reyes placed second with $60.00 in new donations divided between his Support The Fight Against Tyranny & Corruption fund and his YouTube Demonetized Long Island Audit, Help Us Keep Fighting Fund.
No other campaigns that we follow saw new donations for either day.
