Court dates have been set for the two individuals involved in an Oct. 1 altercation at a Turning Point USA booth on the campus of Southern Illinois University.
SIU student Carmella Cesario is being charged with damage to property and has a court date set for Nov. 7. Nathan Myers, who is not an SIU student and is a member of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, is being charged with battery. His court date was initially set for the same day as Cesario’s — but Myers has since motioned to plead not guilty.
Advertisement
According to Judici, defense attorney Michael Burke of the Southern Illinois Law Center will be representing Myers in court during his new date of Dec. 5. Burke is an SIU alum and earned his juris doctorate degree from the SIU School of Law.
Cesario and Myers will each appear in court via Zoom in front of Jackson County Judge Jonathan Mitchell.
In video footage of the altercation obtained by the Daily Egyptian, TPUSA and CFACT pamphlets, posters and papers can be seen strewn across the Lawson lawn, which Myers said Cesario had done, prompting the altercation.
Advertisement*
CFACT, the organization that Myers represents, is a conservative nonprofit that advocates for free-market solutions to environmental issues, and often partners with TPUSA on college campuses.
In videos released by SIU TPUSA on Facebook and Instagram, Cesario can be seen taking items from the booth and throwing them in the trash. Myers is then seen rushing over to prevent them from doing so, which is when Cesario is initially taken to the ground.
Myers alleged that it was Cesario who first started to get physical, but Cesario claims otherwise.
“Whenever they (TPUSA) show up, I take all their papers, and usually they don’t stop me, because I assume they aren’t supposed to physically assault people,” Cesario said in an interview following the altercation. “But this time when I took their papers, as I was turning away, one of the Turning Point people, a man with a maroon shirt and a beard (Myers), grabbed my bag and threw me to the ground. I started grabbing some more of their signage, and he grabbed me and threw me down again. And when I tried to get up and grab some of the things I dropped, he threw me down again.”
Videos taken from multiple angles show Myers slamming Cesario to the ground as the two argued. Footage shows Myers grabbing Cesario’s arm from over their shoulder as the pair were picking up flyers from the ground, then throwing Cesario onto the sidewalk.
“There’s a cut on my face,” Cesario said the night of the incident. “I have several scrapes and bruises on my hands and forearms, and I just want there to be a paper trail, because initially I was arrested as the person who did battery … I did not put my hands on the other person. The only things I touched were physical objects. I did not harm the other person. He attempted to coerce me into hurting him. He was trying to make me mad, but he did throw me to the ground at least three times.”
Cesario previously admitted to the DE that they have taken TPUSA papers from their booths multiple times in the past, and has filed no official motion for representation nor have they indicated how they plan to plead to the property damage charges.
“(Cesario) decided to come and tear everything up and rip things out of the ground,” Myers told the DE the day of the incident. “So I went to reclaim our property — which had not been given to her. She didn’t even say anything when she walked up, she just walked up and immediately started trashing the table. So it got a little physical, unfortunately. I didn’t want it to, but I had to defend us and defend our stuff.”
In a statement released after the incident, the SIU TPUSA chapter condemned the actions of both Cesario and Myers.
“Their behaviors do not reflect the values we uphold, nor did they conduct themselves properly,” the statement read.
Both cases are being handled as municipal ordinance violations, not state criminal prosecutions. Ordinance violations are filed by the City of Carbondale Attorney and not the State’s Attorney’s Office.
Under Carbondale’s home-rule authority, local ordinances mirror Illinois statutes such as criminal damage to property (§13-28) and criminal battery (§13-27), but carry civil penalties such as fines or community service and rarely result in jail time.
In some court documents, Myers’ name is spelled “Meyers,” which is not how he spells it in his professional profiles online.
The Daily Egyptian will continue to follow this story as it develops.
News Editor Jackson Brandhorst can be reached at [email protected] or on Instagram @jacksondothtml
Advertisement
