“The legal system often re-traumatizes survivors, especially when defense attorneys use invasive questions and character attacks to discredit them.” — Rebecca Campbell, PhD, trauma psychologist.
David Lucas is the founder and principal attorney of Lucas Law Group in Melrose, MA. He is also an old high school friend of Ward Hamilton and the architect behind Ward's legal strategy; a strategy which includes questioning my mental state and sending out letters threatening the admins of various Facebook groups and other private citizens while completely ignoring communication from both me and my attorney. Let's take a closer look at Dave.
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If you've read the timeline, you know that Dave is responsible for sending the original round of threatening letters out in November 2023.
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It is also plausible that a similar threat is the reason I, and my supporters, have either been banned or have our posts rejected from the UNCENSORED Facebook group starting in August 2025 when that admin referenced a "developing legal dispute".
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Here's what you SHOULD know:
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Threatening legal action in an attempt to stifle people's First Amendment rights, especially if it is already protected because it's either been previously adjudicated, it's already known to be protected (as in criticism of public persons) or is otherwise frivolous, is called a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) suit.
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While not illegal, it is highly discouraged to the point that the state of Massachusetts has a special anti-SLAPP statute that allows these types of suits to be quickly dismissed. This law, G.L. c. 231, § 59H, protects individuals and entities from meritless lawsuits filed to silence or intimidate them for exercising their rights to free speech and petition, allowing them to file a "special motion to dismiss".
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Attorneys who knowingly file, or threaten to file, these types of abusive lawsuits are subject to discipline from the Board of Bar Overseers, which can include private reprimands all the way up to suspension or loss of their law license.
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The dubious actions of legal professionals like this further exacerbates harm for victims of sexual assault, and adds to the stigma that members of the legal community will not believe them so why bother reporting it. Worse, the pseudo-authority society gives to members of the legal profession often means their questionable and/or problematic behavior is considered acceptable, lawful, and/or ethical. For this exact reason their motives must be considered when they are acting on behalf of an accused client, to make sure they are not causing further abuse through using the legal system as a means of harm.
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Attacks such as this, on survivors like me, is why I am a staunch supporter of the Speak Your Truth Act, which will help strengthen the anti-SLAPP statue for everyone, as well as specifically protect survivors from similar litigation.
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To this end, a formal complaint was filed and received by the Board of Bar Overseers against David Lucas on August 29, 2025. The complaint included 21 pages of supporting documentation. A copy of the complaint is below. I am not linking to the pages of evidence because they are almost all in the timeline.
To whom it may concern,
I am writing to voice my concern regarding David Lucas. Mr. Lucas violated Massachusetts Rules of Professional Conduct 2.1, 4.1, and 4.4 (a) in a letter sent to 3rd parties on November 2, 2023.
On that date, Mr. Lucas sent the attached letter (a.1) to admins of a Facebook Group threatening civil litigation because they hosted an anonymous post from a person who claimed that his client committed sexual assault back in 1990. This was the first contact from anyone at his firm (or anyone reputably linked to his client, Ward Hamilton) to these admins. The contents of this letter exemplify a classic example of a SLAPP threat (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation). Mr. Lucas purposefully fabricated and willingly misled the people to whom these letters were sent to both discourage conversation about the rape accusation of an elected official (who also happens to be a life-long friend of his) and to threaten them with litigation; the subtext of which is saddling them with costly attorney’s fees. The specifics are as follows. I highly recommend going to the website to view the clickable links though they are printed out as part of the included packet.
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Mr. Lucas claims that the allegations of rape are retaliation over “a political cause in Melrose from the past year.” This is knowingly false, as outlined (with evidence) on the website annesstory.wixsite.com/home/timeline, and the included printed timeline (b.1-4) and supporting documents. Mr. Lucas’ client had been contacted multiple times over multiple years prior about the alleged rape (b.5-6) and she had posted publicly about it right before this letter was written (b.7). Further, Mr. Lucas knew this to be true because:
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He knew the accuser’s name even though the post was anonymous, meaning he had familiarity with the past accusations.
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He is a member of several Facebook groups where she has made this accusation numerous times previously.
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He had no credible reason to think that these accusations had anything to do with a mascot debate, especially considering there was/is no evidence of any kind that the accuser had any previous history of false accusations/reporting or any other red flags that would lead Mr. Lucas or his client to think this was a pattern of behavior for her (or anyone else for that matter). In fact, the only pattern evident as per the evidence is the accuser’s consistent story of what happened to her at the hands of his client.
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Mr. Lucas then changes course and writes that the victim has self-reported mental illness. This would also have been knowingly false. There is no correspondence between the victim and the accused, Mr. Lucas, or any of his clients’ associates from which to draw this conclusion. All correspondence that would have been available to Mr. Lucas and/or his client is included here (b.5-6) plus a 3rd party she reached out to that knew his client (c.1-4). There is nothing in this correspondence that would lead Mr. Lucas to these conclusions outside of exaggerating her “anxiety” claims. In fact, the case for mental illness was fabricated by his client long before this and was a lie still being perpetuated (c.5) to cast dispersion on the victim’s story and credibility, forcing her to respond both publicly (c.6) and privately to his client (c.7-10) because of the unsubstantiated assertions made “true” by including it in the legal document sent by Mr. Lucas. The victim’s lawyer also responded with a cease-and-desist of her own regarding the allegations of mental illness (c.11)
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Mr. Lucas changes course again and accuses the admins of the group of also holding a grudge against his client based on the speculative opinion that it must be true because they turned off comments. There is absolutely zero evidence to support this claim. He also claims that multiple people reached out on his client’s behalf to ask the admins to remove the post or open up comments to allow for defense of his client. This is false; only 1 person who, to the best of the admin’s knowledge, was not affiliated with Mr. Lucas or his client, reached out to ask the post to be taken down (d.1).
Outside of the falsities of this letter, there is also basic due-diligence Mr. Lucas failed to do as part of his ethical responsibilities before sending out this letter.
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There is plenty of case precedent that has determined unless the admins of a group or platform actively engage as part of the defamation/libel, they cannot be held responsible simply as hosts of the forum on which the post appears. Any competent human that can perform a Google Search would know this before sending this type of letter. Yet he did anyway, knowing that defending even a frivolous suit would cost folks money they saw no reason to spend, over a story they were hosting as a volunteer Facebook admin. As a result, the post was deleted from the group, the “anonymous” poster was banned, and at least one of the admins spent $1600 having their own attorney write a cease-and-desist letter to Mr. Lucas; all as a direct result of this letter (e.1) The SLAPP threat worked.
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Mr. Lucas did not attempt to, in any way, contact the admins of these groups or have his client contact the admins of these groups to explain his client’s position and ask them to take the posts down. These 3rd party, unaffiliated persons were first notified of an issue with the post when they received this threat of a lawsuit to scare them into submission.
As of this letter, I can confirm that not one of the people who have received this letter from Mr. Lucas, nor people his client has publicly stated he was actively suing (c.5) have, in fact, received any summons and complaint; it stops with their acquiescence to Mr. Lucas’ threats.
Setting aside the burden of proof for a defamation suit in general, let alone the fact that his client…as a public figure/politician…is subject to less scrutable interpretations for these suits, Mr. Lucas should not only know better, but be expected to conduct himself in a manner that reflects the highest ethical standards of his profession as he is a named partner in his firm. Mr. Lucas’ close, personal relationship with his client has clouded his better professional judgement in this case and he should be held accountable for these infractions.