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Tennessee Man Whose Charlie Kirk Meme Got Him Thrown In Jail Wins Landmark $835,000 Settlement
Larry Bushart, 61, a retired police officer based in Lexington, Tennessee, was thrown in jail in September 2025 for refusing to take down his post about Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
Eight months later, he walked away with an $835,000 settlement on a First Amendment lawsuit, in which he reportedly sued Perry County officials.
Bushart’s arrest was widely condemned as an overreach, with many claiming that legal consequences for social media posts are a “blatant” breach of free speech rights.
“No one should be hauled off to jail in the dark of night over a harmless meme just because the authorities disagree with its message,” Adam Steinbaugh, a senior attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which represents Bushart, said in a statement.
RELATED:
Larry Bushart was jailed for sharing a Donald Trump quote in response to Charlie Kirk’s demise
Image credits: Perry County Sheriff’s Office
Charlie Kirk was assassinated after a bullet hit him in the neck during an outdoor speaking event at Utah Valley University on September 10, 2025.
His passing sparked a massive social media discourse, leading to more than 600 people being fired or penalized for making comments deemed “negative” or “mocking” about Kirk, according to The Guardian. Larry Bushart was reportedly the only person to face felony charges and spend time behind bars for them.
After the assassination, Bushart made several posts on the matter, including one that accused Kirk’s organization, Turning Point USA, of perpetuating hate.
Image credits: RealCharlieKirk
At one point, he shared a post featuring President Donald Trump and his 2024 comments about the Perry High School carnage in Iowa, in which he said, “We have to get over it.”
Bushart posted it on a Facebook page advertising a candlelight vigil for Kirk with the caption, “This seems relevant today.”
The mention of the Perry High School tragedy didn’t sit right with law enforcement. The Perry County Sheriff’s Office sent an officer to Bushart’s residence, who appeared confused in bodycam footage that was released later, but informed him that a Facebook post he had made was “insinuating violence” and he was to delete it.
“No, it wasn’t,” Larry responded. “I’m not going to take it down.”
Bushart was then arrested on a charge of threatening mass violence at a school. His bail was set at $2 million, which many lawyers have pointed out is too high for the nature of the alleged crime.
He spent 37 days in jail before the charge against him was dropped in October. The prison time cost him his part-time medical transport job and made him miss his wedding anniversary and the birth of his granddaughter.
In December, he filed a federal lawsuit, alleging that his arrest infringed on his First Amendment rights by retaliating against his “protected speech.”
Larry County is set to pay $835,000 to Larry Bushart to settle the federal lawsuit
Image credits: WKRNTV
Larry Bushart’s lawsuit charged Perry County, its sheriff Nick Weems, and the investigating officer who obtained his arrest warrant, Jason Morrow, alleging “wrongful arrest, wrongful prosecution, and wrongful incarceration.”
While he had not asked for a specific amount of money in the lawsuit, Bushart and Perry County agreed to an $835,000 settlement, to be paid by the county’s insurer.
“I am pleased my First Amendment rights have been vindicated,” Bushart said in a statement after the agreement. “The people’s freedom to participate in civil discourse is crucial to a healthy democracy.”
Imagine making $22,500 a day just for refusing to delete memes. Teach me your secrets pic.twitter.com/v2AOV2s1DI
— Edakoh (@edakoh_) May 21, 2026
Weems and Morrow, however, have not admitted to any wrongdoing.
“As Sheriff, there is no responsibility I take more seriously than protecting the children in our community, who are some of the most vulnerable among us,” Weems said in a collective statement.
After Bushart’s arrest in September 2025, Weems admitted in a WTVF interview that, while he was aware the Facebook posts were lawful free speech, he believed they caused fear about a “hypothetical Perry County High School sho*ting,” given that his jurisdiction shared the same name as the Iowa school mentioned in the post.
Image credits: a_CYruCKibuuka
Image credits: RealCharlieKirk
When the interviewers pointed out that the post was about a past incident that occurred at a different location, the sheriff said, “We knew. The public did not know.”
“Investigators believe Bushart was fully aware of the fear his post would cause and intentionally sought to create hysteria within the community,” Weems said in another statement to The Tennessean at that time.
Larry Bushart’s wife was concerned about his social media fixation
Image credits: Unfiltermindd
Image credits: WKRNTV
In February 2026, four months after Larry Bushart’s return home from prison, he and his wife opened up on the former cop’s post-pandemic habit of debating strangers online in a conversation with the New York Times.
Bushart jokingly described himself as a “warrior” with the keyboard as his “weapon,” who liked spending hours on the internet, posting political memes and arguing with other users in the comment section. He picked up the habit during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
The frequency of his online activities increased after he retired from the state corrections department in 2024 — a change that bothered his wife, who preferred not to reveal her name. Bushart had become a very different man from the “funny, thoughtful, and reliable” one she met while serving in the U.S. Army Reserves, and years later, in 2018, married.
Image credits: caitttyJ
Image credits: WSMV4
“He was scared he was going to miss something,” Mrs. Bushart told the New York Times. “I told him, ‘You can’t save the world, you know.’”
His arrest left her so distraught and distracted that she quit her job at a sewing factory.
Bushart admitted that he probably could have used a “new hobby” after retirement.
However, he stated that he doesn’t regret what he posted about Kirk and clarified his stance about the late conservative activist.
“I’m not going to call Charlie a bad person, but I thought, what made him worthy of all that?” Bushart said, referring to his confusion over the large number of people who seemed “affected” by Kirk’s demise.
“I could have been more dignified, classy,” he added about his post. “But, hell, we all could be.”
Between the legal ordeal and his wife’s disapproval, he has now decided to take a break from the internet, but remains of the view that social media advocacy is “a form of resistance.”
“This is a win for free speech.” The internet celebrated Larry Bushart winning an $835,000 settlement over a Charlie Kirk meme
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43Duckies 7 minutes ago
In a situation like this one, I think the settlement should have included a requirement for the sheriff to, at MINIMUM, refrain from *continuing* to publicly claim that the arrest was justified (as he is quoted here doing), in contradition to having lost the case. Arguably, that amounts to continued slander, when they *could* just keep their mouth shut. (And honestly, I don't think even silence about it going forward is enough: I think that when an official and jurisdiction commit a wrongful arrest that affects someone's life like this, the settlement should also require them to issue a public statement explicitly admitting that the arrest was wrong, and officially apologizing to the victim. *In addition* to the settlement money, mind you.)
43Duckies 7 minutes ago
In a situation like this one, I think the settlement should have included a requirement for the sheriff to, at MINIMUM, refrain from *continuing* to publicly claim that the arrest was justified (as he is quoted here doing), in contradition to having lost the case. Arguably, that amounts to continued slander, when they *could* just keep their mouth shut. (And honestly, I don't think even silence about it going forward is enough: I think that when an official and jurisdiction commit a wrongful arrest that affects someone's life like this, the settlement should also require them to issue a public statement explicitly admitting that the arrest was wrong, and officially apologizing to the victim. *In addition* to the settlement money, mind you.)
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