'Trump Train' trial: Texas jury finds San Antonio man violated Klan Act; 5 defendants cleared

A Texas jury on Monday found that a San Antonio man violated the Ku Klux Klan Act in a two-week-long civil trial over a “Trump Train” convoy in Central Texas that swarmed a Joe Biden-Kamala Harris bus along one of the state’s busiest highways in October 2020.

The jury was tasked with deciding whether the Trump Train drivers violated a federal law barring coordinated political intimidation.

The seven-member jury ordered Eliazar Cisneros, a chef and Navy veteran, to pay the bus's driver, Tim Holloway, $10,000 in compensatory damages. It also levied a $30,000 fine in punitive damages against Cisneros, which will be shared among the plaintiffs. The jury found no civil liability against five co-defendants: two married couples and a retired singer.

The plaintiffs — former state Sen. Wendy Davis, who gained national attention for her 15-hour filibuster of a bill restricting abortions in 2013; a member of Biden’s staff; and the driver — testified during the two-week trial that the 90-minute confrontation on Oct. 30, 2020, on Interstate 35 led them to suffer months of severe anxiety and insomnia.

In the 2020 incident at the center of the case, roughly 30 cars festooned with flags supporting former President Donald Trump intercepted a wrapped campaign bus in San Antonio and surrounded it for more than 90 minutes, with drivers swerving, brake-checking, honking and yelling at its passengers. The convoy forced the bus to move as slowly as 15 mph on a highway with a speed limit of 70 mph, creating a dangerous speed differential, a police expert testified.

The plaintiffs' attorneys presented evidence showing Cisneros hatched the plan to “escort” the bus and that two friends, Jason Peña and Edward Niño, helped spread the word. However, Peña and Nino were not included in the original complaint.

The verdict marks the first time in the modern era that a jury has found a defendant liable under the support-or-advocacy clauses of the 1871 Klan Act, which prohibits coordination to prevent political participation through intimidation, harassment, threats or other forms of violence.

The jurors did not find any defendants liable for Texas statutes on civil assault and civil conspiracy, two additional counts the plaintiffs had sought.

Both sides presented the verdict as a victory. Standing alongside husband and co-defendant Robert outside of the courtroom, Joeylynn Mesaros said she felt the judicial system had been weaponized against her and that she was "glad the jury was able to see through that and uphold justice."

"We felt like we've been hunted like prey and like zoo animals in the cage and mischaracterized and misrepresented, and we're just ready to feel like normal people again," Mesaros said, noting she had accumulated nearly $300,000 in legal fees. "We have a 14-year-old son and we've missed out on so much time with him. We just wanted to focus on feeling like regular people for a while."

She added, "It's imperative that we do not use the Ku Klux Klan law against people to silence them just because of emotional damage in a time where people have an oversensitivity to things that offend them."

Cisneros declined to comment, but his lawyer, former U.S. Rep. Francisco "Quico" Canseco, vowed to appeal the verdict.

Throughout the trial, the defendants argued they exercised their First Amendment right to free speech and assembly on the highway, admitting they got rowdy but insisting that their actions and words should be viewed as one would view sports fans’ enthusiasm and hyperbole. They also testified they did not intend to block the bus' movement or campaign activities, only to stage a protest, and criticized plaintiffs for not going after some of the most aggressive drivers.

Attorneys for the defendants also highlighted their clients' working-class backgrounds, emphasizing that the proceedings has drained their finances.

It also caps an emotionally-charged, two-week-long trial that put the strong ties between the defendants' political convictions and their Christian faith on display — both on and off the stand. Asked about social media posts referring to Democrats as "demonic" and "anti-God," defendants including Steve and Brandi Ceh affirmed the views.

In prayer huddles at the courthouse Monday, part-time pastor Steve Ceh and stay-at-home mom Joeylynn Mesaros asked for jurors to see "the truth," railed against "socialists" and vowed to continue fighting.

"God, we pray that this tyranny would stop and that this church would rise," Ceh said to the group, which assembled in the hallway outside of the courtroom. "That we would never just quit and we would never just back out of this fight."

During testimony, Cisneros launched into several impassioned speeches about how Democrats were "destroying the country" and attested to a belief that he needed to protect the American way of life, not only through the Trump Train but also in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021.

"It's a shame they put these people's political beliefs on trial," said Jason Greaves, a lawyer for the Cehs.

The Cehs' daughter, Hannah, and her husband Kyle settled last year, issuing an apology for their behavior.

"I apologize to the occupants of the bus for my part in actions that day that frightened or intimidated them," she wrote in a statement released with the settlement.e

Monday's verdict follows a settlement the plaintiffs secured with San Marcos over the city's failure to send a police escort to assist the bus. In that lawsuit, plaintiffs also accused the police of violating the KKK Act when they ignored pleas for help, making use of records that showed officers privately laughed at the bus' passengers. The city paid $175,000 in November 2023 to settle the case.

Trial took apart organization, execution of Trump Train convoy

The campaign canceled a scheduled stop in San Marcos and nixed the planned Austin finish of the “Battle for the Soul of the Nation” tour as a result, communications from the day of the events show.

The plaintiffs — Davis, former Biden staffer David Gins, and driver Timothy Holloway — testified that they feared for their lives and suffered symptoms of anxiety, depression, insomnia or all three for months after the incident.

The plaintiffs did not sue several drivers who traveled in front of the bus, impeding its movement. Several of the defendants stayed behind the bus or far away from it for the duration of the highway confrontation.

Protect Democracy, a Washington-based nonprofit that opposes authoritarianism; the Texas Civil Rights Project; and Willkie, Farr and Gallagher, LLP brought the lawsuit on the plaintiffs' behalf in June 2021.

Several high-profile conservative attorneys argued for the defense, including former U.S. Rep. Francisco "Quico" Canseco and Greaves, who represented Trump adviser Michael Flynn in a case seeking to overturn 2020 election results in Georgia and whose Northern Virginia firm has defended Trump in several election fraud cases. Each defendant was represented individually.

The plaintiffs are seeking to recover attorneys' fees in this case, according to the complaint, which could exceed $1 million. Whether they receive them will be up to presiding U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman.