Legal Fund for College Republicans United

My name is Richard Thomas, I am the founder of College Republicans United at Arizona State University which was formed January 2018. I have been the owner of Republicans United LLC since 2021, which is the national organization of multiple College Republican United chapters throughout the country. I am a State and Precinct Committeeman from Legislative District 12. I am writing to you to inform you of my wrongful arrest on January 28th at 9:30am at the State Party Convention located at 13613 N Cave Creek Rd, Phoenix AZ 85022.

A fellow State Committeeman had filed an injunction against me for workplace harassment claiming to be the owner of College Republicans United. He lied to the court saying the church was his workplace, among other absurdities. I was informed of this "order of protection" on January 27th in the late evening when I had no time for recourse or appeal. I attended the meeting the following day thinking the police would be reasonable and see the error with the documentation I brought. While local security acted professionally, unfortunately, Phoenix PD made the arrest, violated my state constitutional obligations as an elected officeholder, and held me for almost 12 hours. During my incarceration, the Judge dismissed my charges but this order of protection remains. I will be taking R.R to court to settle this matter.

My civil rights were violated. The courts should not be weaponized to prevent committeemen from voting at party conventions. We should not set a precedent creating a situation where cliques can use the courts to prevent opponents from voting at these meetings.

Proof of ownership

“College Republicans United” has been a registered trademark with the Secretary of State, File ID: 9067550 as well as our logo the same day under File ID: 9067555 July 2nd, 2018. Months later a donor created our website RepublicansUnited.org and transferred ownership of this website to me. What originally started as a college club quickly grew into a multi-state national organization. In February of 2021, I then filed Republicans United LLC with the Arizona Corporation Commission.

With our organizational structure, our team developed a system that allowed for the creation of a State Chairman who would be appointed or removed by the student leadership from our College Republican United chapters within Arizona. This state chairman's role was designed to be a resource for the students to use to find speakers, internships, jobs, and other necessities. This person would also act as an advocate within the Arizona Republican Party.

Complaint against R.R.

During the fall of 2022, I became aware of complaints from student leadership of ASU-College Republicans United regarding State Chairman R.R. control of College Republicans United’s MailChimp email and other accounts. In this complaint, students were not given full control of the account’s two-factor authorization. This control prevented emails from being sent to students promptly regarding events or cancellations. R.R. justified these actions by saying he was following orders by ASU Faculty because the students could not be trusted to manage their email or social media communications.

When I attempted to intervene, R.R. submitted a complaint about my “micromanagement'' to our national board and asked for an investigation. Throughout this investigation, including recorded interviews with students and a review of other logs, the national team uncovered a series of abuse and violations by R.R. within ASU College Republicans United and elsewhere. In one particular discovery it was found R.R. stole over $170 from ASU's PayPal account on Fast food, Cigars, Parking Tickets, DMV, and other unauthorized expenses.

R.R. also attempted to make a series of unauthorized negotiations with various parties seeking opportunities to collect speaker fees dubbed "pay for play" to collect commission fees. These negotiations hurt the working relationships we have developed with various parties over the years. This was enough to warrant a recall by the leadership of UofA and later ASU. In response, R.R. attempted to intimidate and harass the ASU students to overturn this impeachment and stole the student's tabling kit worth roughly $400 in marketing materials. When the students refused to side with R.R. he attempted to force impeachments and resignations from the students but later resigned himself from our organization.

Legal Issue with R.R.

Quickly after his resignation, R.R. filed his own trademark claiming to be the owner of “College Republicans United of Arizona Christian University” FILE ID 9309663, “College Republicans United of Arizona State University” FILE ID 9309658, “College Republicans United of Grand Canyon University” FILE ID 9309662, “College Republicans United of Northern Arizona University” FILE ID 9309661, “College Republicans United of University of Arizona” FILE ID 9309660, “Republicans United of Arizona” FILE ID 9309760.

R.R. has sent a Cease and Desist letter demanding bank account access and other personal information be transferred to him. What started off as a small court matter has broiled to the incident yesterday.