It began with a family grudge.
Anastasios Marros is friends with Sally Spanos’ adult sons from her prior marriage, and when Sally divorced her husband and married Jonathan Spanos, Marros “publicly and privately pledged to ruin” the couple’s lives, according to a lawsuit filed last month.
Marros’ grudge, according to the complaint, began with “online disparagement on the social media platform Facebook, as well as heated, verbal barbs directed at (the couple) at events attended by them, including a family funeral.”
Jonathan Spanos, owner of the venerable East York restaurant The Paddock, apologized for the racist words captured on a viral video. Now, he and his wife have filed a defamation suit against the people who recorded and posted the video.
On Oct. 19, 2024, it allegedly continued when Marros and Meghan Dundon confronted the Spanoses on a suburban street in York Township. Marros and Dundon share an address in Charlotte, North Carolina, and had traveled to York to attend the wedding of Kostas Sgagias, whose relationship with the couple was not specified in the lawsuit.
The resulting video of the confrontation – in which Spanos uses the “n-word” and declares, sarcastically, that he is “a racist” – quickly spread across social media and led to threats of violence against Jonathan and Sally Spanos, including threats of rape, according to the suit.
It also led to economic hardship, the lawsuit asserts, as business at the family’s restaurant, The Paddock on Market, a longtime East York institution on East Market Street in Springettsbury Township, fell off.
As a result, the Spanoses and the business have filed a defamation suit against Marros, Dundon and Sgagias, alleging a civil conspiracy to harm the couple and their restaurant. The Spanoses, the suit asserts, “have suffered and will continue to suffer substantial injury and irreparable harm.” The suit seeks a judgment of a total minimum of $250,000 for its five counts, which include commercial disparagement, defamation/libel, false light/invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil conspiracy.
Attorney Edward Paskey, representing the Spanoses, wrote in the suit, “The actions of the defendants were malicious, wanton, willful, oppressive, exhibited an evil motive and showed reckless indifference to the rights of others.”
The couple has “suffered severe emotional distress including stress, anxiety, insomnia and fear for their safety,” Paskey wrote. The Paddock, the attorney asserted, “has been irreparably harmed, and has incurred financial loss of revenue.”
Marros’ attorney, Farley Holt, described the suit as “rubbish” and questioned the Spanos’ motives in filing 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?”
Paskey 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 a statement, Paskey 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.”
The Paddock restaurant on East Market Street in Springettsbury Township is seen Nov. 11, 2024.
‘Humiliated and embarrassed’
The suit centers on the viral video in which Jonathan Spanos is depicted as yelling a racial epithet known as the “n-word” and declaring “I am a racist” during the roadside argument.
Dissemination of the video sparked protests and led to Spanos, a prominent figure in York County, having to resign from the Penn State-York board of directors, and calls for a boycott of The Paddock, which dates to 1947 and has been in the Spanos family for three generations.
It also led to threats against the restaurant and its staff, according to the complaint, prompting the Spanoses to temporarily close, and to the explicit, racially tinged threats of violence against Spanos and his wife.
Shortly after the video blew up on social media, Spanos met with leaders of York County’s Black community, who had condemned his language and urged him to reflect on his words and actions. He held a press conference with Black leaders and clergy to apologize and ask for forgiveness, saying he was “humiliated and embarrassed.”
“To members of my community who are Black and brown, I want to say how truly sorry I am for my language and my behavior,” Spanos said during the press conference. “The video captured a heated family confrontation in which I intentionally used the most ugly language known to me to lash out in anger. … 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 great trauma in our country, our community and to our neighbors. I was also wrong to state sarcastically in the video that I am a racist.”
Pastor Bill Kerney, President of the Black Ministers Association of York County, right, with Jonathan Spanos after he made his apology in Springettsbury Township Nov. 13, 2024.
Previously: ‘Humiliated and embarrassed’: Spanos apologizes and asks for forgiveness for racist rant
The community response: Black community leaders spoke after Jonathan Spanos’ public apology for racist comments
‘Their scheme succeeded’
At about 11:30 a.m. on Oct. 19, 2024, Spanos and his wife were driving on Wyndsong Drive in York Township when he pulled to the curb to speak to a family friend, according to the complaint.
While Spanos and his wife were talking to their friend, the complaint states, Marros and Dundon apparently saw them and pulled in behind them. As Spanos pulled away from the curb, Marros “made a profane physical gesture” toward the couple.
Spanos stopped and he and Marros confronted one another. Dundon recorded the confrontation with her cell phone. At one point, the complaint states, she told Spanos, in what was described as a “threatening” manner, “Ohhhh. You said the ‘N’ word that’s not going to be good for you.”
The suit contends that although the confrontation took place on a public street, “the interaction was a private discussion” and that Spanos had not given his consent to be recorded.
The confrontation ended and, Paskey wrote in the suit, “It was at this point that the plot between Marros, Dundon and Sgagias was hatched.”
The suit asserts that Marros and Dundon “devised a scheme to edit and condense the video taken by Dundon and distribute it to others with the intent to harm” the Spanoses and The Paddock.
“Their scheme succeeded,” Paskey wrote in the complaint.
‘Death threats and threats of violence’
They sent the video to a friend, Sgagias, who beginning at 7:28 a.m. on Nov. 10, began sharing it via text, according to the complaint. Three hours after he posted the video, according to the complaint, Sgagias called the state police “inquiring whether his dissemination of the video constituted a crime.”
The suit asserts that Sgagias created an anonymous X account with the title @YorkpaRacist “at the direction of, or encouragement by, Marros and Dundon.” He used that account to distribute the video, tagging the York Daily Record, The York Dispatch, Penn State-York, the local branch of the NAACP and Democratic U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, a York native, with the intent to “tarnish the reputation of The Paddock and Dr. Spanos.”
The video “spread like wildfire across the United States and around the world,” Paskey wrote in the 24-page complaint.
As a result, the Spanoses “began to receive death threats and threats of violence.” In several calls, according to the complaint, the caller threatened to rape Susan Spanos in calls recorded on voicemail.
The calls, quoted in the complaint, contained “obscene, vile, racist and threatening” language, Paskey wrote. One sample: “Your restaurant is going to be shut the (expletive) down, (expletive). Yeah, John, Mr. John Spanos, you (expletive) racist piece of (expletive). And I can’t wait till you get (expletive) checked by somebody because I’m going to (expletive) on your (expletive) grave, (expletive).”
The Spanos reported the calls to police, which resulted in the arrest of the caller who later pleaded guilty “for communicating these obscene, vile, racist and threatening messages to Dr. and Mrs. Spanos,” according to the complaint. (The person was not identified in the complaint, and Paskey said some of the same people who condemned Spanos’ actions knew about the threats, “yet there has been no public condemnation from them.”)
“But for the actions of Marros, Dundon and/or Sgagias, Dr. and Mrs. Spanos would not have received these threats,” Paskey wrote. “To be clear, Dr. Spanos regrets the use of inappropriate and ugly words uttered in the video and has voluntarily apologized for his actions. He does not hide from his conduct.
“However, 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.”
Columnist/reporter Mike Argento has been a York Daily Record staffer since 1982. Reach him at mike@ydr.com.
This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: Spanoses sue 3 allegedly involved in posting video of racist rant