A Pennsylvania restaurant owner who was caught on video going on a racist rant is now suing the people who allegedly posted the footage, claiming they intended to publicly humiliate him and sully his reputation.
In November 2024, a video was posted to social media showing Jonathan Spanos making racist remarks during an apparent road rage confrontation.
The 40-second clip was posted on X under the account @YorkpaRacist and catches Spanos yelling, “Your half n— brother,” and saying, “I am a racist.”
Soon after the video began circulating online and drew backlash from the York County community, Spanos issued a public apology and resigned from his position as an advisory board member for Penn State University’s York campus. Spanos also temporarily shuttered the doors of his restaurant, The Paddock.
“I repeatedly used the N-word to inflict pain on another person and sarcastically stated that I was a racist,” Spanos said. “I was wrong for not walking away from that volatile situation. I was wrong for responding in anger with hateful language. I was wrong for using a racist term that has caused trauma in our country, country, and to my fellow neighbors in York.”
Now, Spanos wants to set the record straight.
Last month, he filed a lawsuit against three people — Anastasios Marros, Kostas J. Sgagias, and Meghan Dundon — and alleged that they recorded and then anonymously posted the video of him as part of a conspiracy to ruin his reputation.
According to the suit cited by ABC27, the roadside altercation last November involving Spanos stemmed from a “family grudge.”
The complaint states that Marros is a close friend of the adult sons of Spanos’s wife from her previous marriage. Marros allegedly took offense when Sally Spanos divorced her ex-husband and remarried him. At that point, he started privately and publicly declaring to ruin the couple’s lives, according to the suit.
His grudge led “to online disparagement on the social media platform Facebook, as well as heated, verbal barbs directed at both Dr. Spanos and Mrs. Spanos at events attended by them, including a family funeral,” the suit states.
On Oct. 19, 2024, the Spanoses were driving on a York Township road and stopped to say hello to a family friend. Marros and Dundon were in town for Sgagias’s wedding and were headed to the event when they saw the Spanoses and pulled over.
Spanos claims that Marros made a “profane physical gesture,” which led to a verbal argument in which Spanos used “a racially offensive and ugly term on two occasions.”
Dundon recorded the altercation on her phone and allegedly told Spanos, “Ohhhh. You said the “N-word, that’s not going to be good for you.”
The suit alleges that the Spanoses never engaged in any “road rage” or “threatening behavior,” and that the discussion was private even though it took place on a public road.
After the altercation ended, Marros, Dundon, and Sgagias worked together to edit and condense the video and distribute it publicly, the suit claims. Sgagias even allegedly contacted the Pennsylvania Police Commission to inquire whether spreading the clip was a crime.
The trio uploaded the video under the X profile “@YorkpaRacist” and tagged two local newspapers and the Penn State advisory board’s account with the intent to tarnish Spanos’ reputation, the complaint states.
Once the video spread, the Spanoses say strangers began calling their home and leaving death threats and threats of violence and rape. The Spanoses reported the calls to police, which resulted in the arrest of one caller who pleaded guilty to charges in connection with the threats.
The lawsuit states that “the actions of Marros, Dundon and Sgagias in orchestrating this scheme to publicly harm The Paddock, Dr. Spanos and Mrs. Spanos are extreme and outrageous.”
It also alleges that the defendants’ actions left the Spanoses with “severe emotional distress including stress, anxiety, insomnia and fear for their safety,” and caused irreparable harm and financial losses to their restaurant.
While the suit specifies the relationship between the Spanoses and Marros, it does not state how the couple knows Dundon and Sgagias.
The Spanoses seek $250,000 in damages from each defendant for commercial disparagement, defamation/libel, false light/invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and civil conspiracy.
In a statement to the York Daily Record, Marros’ attorney called the suit “rubbish” and questioned why Spanos would file it.
“One would think that he would be happy to distance himself from this incident instead of dragging it back up. Why would you bring this back up and air your dirty laundry in public when that’s what you’re complaining about?” Attorney Farley Holt stated.
Edward Paskey, the attorney representing the Spanoses, responded, “Causing someone to receive threats of being raped is hardly rubbish. The suit, in some ways, is a microcosm of American society today. If we condemn what Dr. Spanos said (which we should and have), we must also publicly condemn the actions of those who respond by planning to ruin the lives of others.”
In another statement, he wrote, “The defendants ultimately succeeded in their plan: The Paddock is permanently closed. Dr. Spanos publicly and voluntarily accepted responsibility for using those vile words. The defendants should publicly accept responsibility for their roles rather than try to deflect. They knew this complaint was coming for months and made zero effort to resolve it.”
