A federal judge on Thursday threw out a lawsuit filed by two Rastafarians against the city of Madison, some city officials and the owner of a building that housed their Rasta church, finding the two had failed to show the city unfairly worked to prevent the establishment of a church in the Downtown building.
The lawsuit was filed in 2019 by Jesse Schworck and Dylan Bangert, proprietors of the Lion of Judah House of Rastafari, which was in a storefront at 555 W. Mifflin St. They were arrested there after police alleged they were openly selling marijuana, but the pair said the pot was a religious sacrament being given to people in exchange for donations to the church.
The lawsuit claimed the city and others violated the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, the First Amendment’s clause allowing free exercise of religion, the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause, the 14th Amendment’s equal protection and due process clauses, and the Wisconsin Constitution.
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Along with the city, the group sued Assistant City Attorney Jennifer Zilavy, Madison police Capt. Jason Freedman, building inspector Kyle Bunnow and the building’s owner, Charanjeet Kaur.
In a 47-page ruling, U.S. District Judge William Conley dismissed claims against Kaur because Schworck and Bangert had failed to properly serve her with an amended version of the lawsuit, and dismissed the rest of the case because the pair had failed to produce evidence to back their claims. Conley noted that Bangert hadn’t even submitted any statement concerning his personal religious beliefs.
The city maintained that the building could not be operated as a church because of building code violations, and had also found that work done on the building’s interior had been done improperly and without permits.
Police raided the would-be church in May 2019, after it had been open since March of that year. Though Schworck and Bangert reopened it in July 2019, after court prohibitions against them being there were lifted, the two were later evicted from the property by Kaur, again after the city had shut it down for the previous code violations.
A Dane County judge granted the eviction in October 2019, finding the pair had breached its lease with Kaur by illegally selling marijuana at the property.
Criminal charges remain pending against Schworck and Bangert in Dane County Circuit Court.
The eviction was the substantial burden placed on their religious practices, the pair maintained, but Conley said that without admissible evidence, no reasonable jury could find that the city and its officials were linked to the eviction, despite assertions from Schworck and Bangert that the city pressured Kaur to evict them from the building. And even assuming city officials treated the church unfairly during permitting or inspection processes, he wrote, there’s no evidence linking that treatment to the eviction.
Conley also rejected equal protection arguments that the church had been singled out for unfair treatment by the city, compared with other local religious organizations. And he rejected an argument that Schworck and Bangert were victims of a conspiracy to enforce Wisconsin’s drug laws. They offer no evidence, he said, that any other church has been allowed to violate drug laws or distribute marijuana.
“While plaintiffs obviously disagree as to whether they must follow Wisconsin drug laws,” Conley wrote, “they have not identified any conduct by defendants Freedman, Zilavy or Bunnow suggesting that the actions they took were unrelated to the enforcement of those laws or the city’s ordinances.”
Anthony Delyea, attorney for Schworck and Bangert, said they plan to appeal.
“This is a complex case, and while I would not disagree with most of what the judge said addressing each individual issue, the truth is that the city of Madison forced the landlord to evict the church,” Delyea said. “The statements by the city attorney, assistant city attorney and police endorsing the use of the building codes to evict the church are the context that we believe the individual issues should have been addressed in.”