Trending
STEUBENVILLE -- A South Carolina man who placed 7,347 profanity-laced calls to City Police in a two-month period was found guilty in Jefferson County Common Pleas Court Tuesday of 21 counts of disrupting public services.
Samuel Vance Hall, 50, of Carlisle, S.C., who waived his right to trial by jury, was found guilty by Judge Joseph Bruzzese after a day-long trial. He'll be sentenced today.
"There is no First Amendment right to interrupt, disrupt or impair the operations of the Steubenville Police Department, and that is exactly what this defendant did," Prosecutor Jane Hanlin said afterward. "This was never about a protest. This was about preventing the dispatchers and police officers from keeping our community safe and it will not be tolerated here."
Prosecutors had argued Hall "knowingly and repeatedly" called city police telephone numbers used for emergency and police matters "so as to disrupt, interrupt or impair their ability to serve area residents.
Authorities said from Nov. 11, 2022, through Jan. 10, 2023, Hall inundated police phone lines with thousands of harassing and threatening calls, "sometimes between 100 and 500 a day" laced with obscenities and derogatory terms of address.
In those calls, Hall routinely referred to officers and dispatchers using racially and ethnically disparaging terms, taunting them that, "You're going to know my name for the rest of your (expletive) life because you're never going to forget how many times I called you (expletive-expletive) and you didn't do a (expletive) thing about it. Understand that. Understand that you (expletive-expletive expletive) of (expletive)."
Hall argued that it was protected speech, telling Bruzzese in a handwritten motion to dismiss his indictment in April 2023 that the calls "are acts covered under the protection and immunities of the United States Constitution First Amendment Free speech and Assembly clauses."
After the verdict, Steubenville Police Chief Ken Anderson said he was "very pleased."
"I am extremely proud of our entire department," he said. "Our dispatchers have a difficult and stressful job. They endured two months of constant harassment from an individual who made it his mission to disrupt our services to the public. I think that shows just how committed they are to their profession, our department and our community."
Anderson said he was deeply appreciative of Hanlin and her staff for all their work on this case, "and I would also like to commend Steubenville Police Detective Jake Mannarino for all his work throughout this investigation."