A federal appeals court has revived only part of William Fambrough’s lawsuit over the seizure of his campaign sound-truck van: his First Amendment retaliation claims against former East Cleveland Mayor Brandon King and former Chief of Staff Michael Smedley. The ruling sends those claims back for further proceedings; it does not resolve the lawsuit. Smedley was later sentenced to federal prison on unrelated charges.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the portion of U.S. District Judge Bridget Brennan’s ruling that dismissed the retaliation claims against King and Smedley, according to Cleveland.com. The panel returned the case to Brennan for further proceedings.
Fambrough owned Legacy Communications and used a van to broadcast campaign messages while driving through East Cleveland during Juanita Gowdy’s 2021 mayoral campaign against King, according to cleveland.com. Gowdy lost the race. Police impounded the van in August 2021, weeks before the primary election, leading Fambrough to sue city officials.
Why the Claims Return
Judge John Nalbandian wrote that Fambrough plausibly alleged King and Smedley targeted him because he supported Gowdy and criticized the city administration, according to the Cleveland.com report. The panel pointed to unresolved questions about the city’s reasons for enforcing noise and parking ordinances against Fambrough, whether complaints about the sound truck had been made, and whether political considerations played a role.
The panel also said that, if Fambrough’s allegations are true, “no reasonable official” would have believed the alleged conduct was lawful. Brennan had dismissed the suit in March 2025, finding that officials had legitimate grounds to enforce the ordinances and that Fambrough had not linked that enforcement to his political speech, cleveland.com reported.
What the Ruling Did Not Revive
The appeals court left other parts of the earlier ruling intact. It ruled in favor of former Police Chief Scott Gardner and rejected Fambrough’s selective-enforcement, prior-restraint and campaign-vehicle seizure theories, according to the outlet’s report. The claims returning to Brennan are limited to retaliation claims against King and Smedley.
Separate Criminal Cases
All three men at the center of the dispute have since left public office, and all three were convicted of unrelated criminal charges in the years following the van impoundment. King was sentenced in July 2025 for steering more than $75,000 in city money to companies he or his family owned. Smedley was sentenced in May to eight years and one month in federal prison for accepting bribes from two East Cleveland brothers who, per the article, posed as members of a royal family to defraud people of millions of dollars.
Ideastream Public Media reported that Gardner pleaded guilty to failing to pay more than $200,000 in sales taxes on his private security business and received five years of probation in 2024. Those cases were not directly tied to the van lawsuit. The appeals ruling concerns civil claims and does not change the outcomes of the separate criminal cases.
East Cleveland’s Fiscal Status
Separately from the van case, the Ohio Auditor of State said East Cleveland’s current fiscal-emergency declaration had been in place for nearly 13 years.
