This article was updated on August 15 at 11 a.m. See the editor’s note below.
FORT DAVIS — Last Thursday, a harassment charge against Big Bend Times publisher David Flash was dropped when District Judge Genie Wright — sitting in for Jeff Davis County Judge Curtis Evans — signed off on the prosecution’s motion to dismiss. Wright’s dismissal left the self-proclaimed “media maven” with a clean legal slate in Far West Texas, after an earlier terroristic threat charge was dropped in March and a disorderly conduct citation was dismissed at the end of June.
With the stroke of a pen, Wright brought to an end a small town scandal nearly two years in the making that fueled hundreds of social media posts, thousands of dollars in legal fees, a successful GoFundMe and even a spoof website making fun of Flash and questioning his ethics and journalistic bona fides.
The trouble began in September of 2023 with a simple request. Flash — a recent Austin-area transplant — was attending a session of the Jeff Davis County Commissioners Court on behalf of The Big Bend Times, his experimental AI journalism venture. (For stylistic clarity, The Big Bend Sentinel will refer to Big Bend Times articles as being “written” by Flash, though many articles on the site are unbylined and much of his content is generated by artificial intelligence.)
Jeff Davis County’s Justice of the Peace Mary Ann Luedecke approached Flash and asked him to remove his hat. “The moment was brief but revealing — foreshadowing tensions that would later define their relationship,” an article on the Big Bend Times, posted long after the fact, recalled.
Luedecke and Flash would continue to butt heads that fall, particularly after a sign appeared on the door at the justice of the peace’s office prohibiting “audiovisual recording, streaming or projecting,” reminding visitors to “turn off all cell phones” and imploring “Gentlemen” to “remove your hat.”
On October 18, 2023, Flash livestreamed a video of himself confronting Luedecke in her office. “We’re not going to have a debate, but I’m going to take some photos of you,” Flash says, perched in the doorway.
The audio is muffled, but Luedecke accuses Flash of “badgering” her, which he loudly denies. The two proceed to have an argument, and the video ends as Flash leaves the courthouse, wondering aloud to his followers about his safety.
To Flash, the argument with Luedecke went much deeper than just pondering on the propriety of wearing a hat in a courtroom or taking photos of people without their consent. “Public officials, especially those vested with the authority of the judiciary, carry the burden of higher standards. They are the stewards of the law, the exemplars of decorum, and the champions of civil liberties,” Flash wrote in an op-ed in November of 2023 declaring Luedecke “unfit for the bench.” “When such an individual falls short, it sends a ripple effect through the fabric of our democracy, eroding public trust and diminishing the sanctity of their office.”
In December of that year, Flash received a criminal contempt warrant notice at his former residence in Fort Davis. “This was alarming, to say the least, as I had never appeared in Judge Mary Ann Luedecke’s court or had any dealings with Jeff Davis County that would warrant such a notice,” he wrote. “The judge later claimed it was a mistake, but given her past actions, this explanation hardly put my mind at ease.”
Flash filed “a notice of civil claim” — the first step before filing a lawsuit — that detailed alleged violations of his First and Fourth Amendment rights by Luedecke. In response, the county lawyered up.
Throughout this period, Flash made numerous calls and email requests for information to Jeff Davis County. Rumors started to spread after he made an appearance at a local gun shop and allegedly took photos from Judge Luedecke’s driveway – which he said were nature shots of antelope.
County officials claimed that Flash’s repeated emails and calls were abusive in tone and primarily targeted Judge Luedecke, though no office was safe from backlash. The Sentinel was not able to review the recordings of calls produced through the course of legal proceedings, which are protected from public view pre-trial by Texas law. However, Flash wrote about Luedecke’s allegation of the driveway photo with quotes from recordings he was able to obtain in legal proceedings, and he said the allegation was false. In the post he wrote: “I don’t know where she lives. I saw an antelope from the road and took a picture. That’s something I do when I see wildlife.”
Luedecke declined to comment for this article, citing Flash’s ongoing threats to sue the county, but County Judge Curtis Evans told a reporter for The Sentinel back in June that the content of the calls was upsetting. “The way he talked to Judge Luedecke on the phone — no one deserves that,” he said. “[Flash] needs to be punished because you don’t talk to people like that.”
Coverage on The Big Bend Times took a turn, too. Flash’s fledgling media project started out focused on small businesses and local goings-on but in early 2024 shifted to focusing on alleged corruption — mostly through the lens of his own conflict with county officials. A handful of those articles turned personal, accusing County Judge Curtis Evans of coasting on his family’s storied roots in the area and even calling Luedecke’s Christian faith into question.
On April 23, 2024, Flash skirted an initial arrest after a deputy was summoned to stop him from banging on Luedeke’s locked office door and loudly asking a secretary inside to open the door while a county meeting was in progress down the hall. Flash livestreamed that incident and later told The Sentinel that the meeting had ended and that he was not “banging” on the door as county officials alleged — that he was merely “knocking,” although noting in his video that he did so “several times.”
Deputy Jerry Walker was instructed to ask Flash to leave the courthouse for the day. Flash became agitated, and an argument broke out. Walker finally gave Flash an ultimatum: leave or be arrested.
Flash slipped away, running down the stairs and exiting the courthouse.
Later that same day, Judge Evans banned Flash from the courthouse grounds, citing a pattern of disruptive behavior.
On April 25, Flash was arrested en route to El Paso by Culberson County deputies, who informed him there was a warrant out for his arrest in Jeff Davis County on terroristic threat and harassment charges.
The event was deeply traumatic for Flash, but the lawmen offered small mercies: he’d been traveling with one of his dogs, Nixon, who was allowed to stay at the jail, and he was able to phone his landlords to let the others out at home.
One of the dogs escaped — a scary prospect in the high desert. She eventually returned home on her own, but the damage was done. “Judge Mary Ann Luedecke’s lies could have killed both of us,” Flash wrote in an emotional post crafted from the dog’s perspective. “We’re never going to stop telling the truth.”
“Y’all need to know what’s going on in your county”
Flash had been arrested on charges of terroristic threat and harassment — both misdemeanors. Feeling rattled, he continued paying rent in Jeff Davis County but shifted his base of operations back to Central Texas, where he felt more secure preparing to fight back against what he felt were bogus charges.
In March 2025, he faced a judge for the first time. Normally, the county court hears misdemeanors — but Flash’s allegations of corruption were so sweeping that County Judge Curtis Evans had to recuse himself from the case. County Attorney Glen Eisen couldn’t be involved either, so Geoff Barr of the state Attorney General’s Office took the helm on the prosecution’s side.
District Judge Genie Wright made the trek from San Antonio to preside over the courtroom. She was disappointed by the crowd — apart from a handful of county employees, only The Big Bend Sentinel and local hotelier Tim Crowley were seated in the historic courtroom. “This place ought to be packed,” Wright said. “Y’all need to know what’s going on in your county.”
Flash was without a lawyer — an inconvenience he blamed on improper notice from the prosecution. He pleaded not guilty to his charges, and the two parties agreed to meet again when he had representation.
In the interim, Flash continued to report on his own case. He also continued to travel the world and post about his adventures — he found a little peace on the road after being the center of chaos for so long. “Despite having committed no crimes, Flash was made to feel unsafe in his own home, forcing him to relocate abroad, where he now feels safer,” he wrote.
The court reconvened in June, by which time Flash had solicited the services of defense attorney Shane O’Neal of Alpine. Fees were covered by a GoFundMe — “Stand with David Flash Against Corruption” — that garnered over $27,000 from donors around the world.
Later that month, Flash was wrestled to the ground by a sheriff’s deputy during a budget workshop held by the Jeff Davis County Commissioners Court in an incident previously covered by The Sentinel.
On July 23, O’Neal filed a “motion to quash,” imploring Judge Wright to drop the case. O’Neal’s motion detailed how slippery harassment charges can be — by statute, harassment is speech “with intent to harass, annoy, alarm, abuse or torment another” unless exempted by First Amendment protections.
Harassment, particularly via the internet, is still an evolving legal concept — the statute that Flash was charged under was last tweaked by the Legislature in 2023.
In June 2025 — during the height of Flash’s case — the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a ruling in Owens v. State, a case involving an alleged string of harassment directed at a therapist from a potential client seeking her services. The court ruled in Owens that harassment charges must come from the “conduct” rather than “content” of the communication — in other words, the way that one party reaches out to another, rather than what was actually said.
On August 5, the prosecution relented, on the grounds that the case they’d been building seemed to violate the Court of Criminal Appeals’ ruling. “The evidentiary basis for the formal charge focuses on the content of the communications made by the defendant, rather than on the defendant’s conduct of making repetitive phone calls,” prosecutor Geoff Barr wrote. “Considering this recent holding in Owens and the State’s position, the State prays the Court dismiss the prosecution.”
A day later, Judge Wright formally declared the case dismissed.
O’Neal felt the judge’s dismissal was a win for free speech. “We are glad that the Office of the Attorney General realized that this was a prosecution of Mr. Flash based on the content of his speech, and in seeing our challenge to that constitutionality, decided to dismiss this case without going through the trouble of a trial,” he said. “They realized that the only evidence they would have relied on would have violated the First Amendment.”
In a written statement to The Sentinel, Jeff Davis County Attorney Glen Eisen and Judge Curtis Evans reiterated that — because they were central figures in Flash’s allegations — they had recused themselves from the case and had nothing to do with the way that the state of Texas chose to prosecute it. “We respect the Court and its rulings and, as always, we will follow the law as they interpret it,” they wrote.
Editor’s note: This article was updated on August 15 at 11 a.m. to better clarify where the allegation of Flash photographing from Judge Luedecke’s driveway came from — a recorded statement from the judge to prosecutor’s that Flash obtained in pre-trial proceedings, according to a post that Flash wrote. The update includes Flash’s denial of those allegations. Another update includes Flash’s assertion that he was “knocking,” not “banging” on Luedecke’s office door and his statement that a county meeting was not in progress, as county officials had stated.