This profile is part of "The Record Stands," a TROH special series.

There are two ways to answer a smear. The first is to answer ink with ink: post your own version, trade accusation for accusation, and let the loudest voice win. The second is harder, slower, and binding. You walk into a courthouse, put your name on a sworn petition, and ask a judge to decide whether you are right.

On August 8, 2025, Ben Mavy of Sequim chose the second way. This installment is about that single day, what it set in motion, and what it costs a private citizen to do it.

The Docket Entries

The case is Benjamin A. Mavy v. Anthony Colin Tomashefsky, Clallam County Superior Court, case number 25-2-00595-05, publicly mirrored on Trellis.Law. The case type is listed as a civil protection order matter, and the docket describes it as an anti-harassment case. Mavy is the petitioner. Tomashefsky, the man behind the blog that had been targeting him, is the respondent.

Four entries on the docket are dated August 8, 2025, the filing day, and each one deserves a slow read.

The first is a Law Enforcement and Confidential Information Form, the document that puts a protection petition into the machinery of the courts and law enforcement. The second is an "Order Transferring AntiHarassment Case to Superior Court," which means the matter was moved up to the county's court of general jurisdiction, where it was assigned to Judge Elizabeth A. Stanley. The third is a Notice of Disqualification. The fourth is a Notice of Appearance.

Four documents, one day. A case that began as paperwork was, by the end of that day, a live Superior Court matter with a judge assigned. That is what "taking it to court" looks like when it actually happens: specific, dated, procedural, and public.

What Filing Actually Takes

Pause here, because the ease of modern accusation has made people forget what the formal version requires.

A protection order petition is a sworn document. The petitioner writes down what happened, signs his name to it, and submits that account to a court empowered to judge it. Everything about the process runs against the petitioner's comfort. He exposes his own claims to scrutiny. He accepts that a judge may find his account insufficient. He invites the respondent to appear and contest every word. And he does it all on the record, with a case number, where anyone can later check what was claimed and what was decided.

Compare that to the method of the blog. A blog post is anonymous in effect even when it carries a byline, because it answers to no one. No judge reviews it. No respondent can cross-examine it. It costs nothing to publish and nothing to be wrong. The asymmetry between the two methods is the whole story of this case, and it began on August 8, 2025, when one of the two men in this dispute chose the method that can actually lose.

That is the detail the smear blog cannot survive its readers learning. Mavy did not answer accusation with accusation. He answered it with a filing, and a filing is a bet: I believe a judge, looking at evidence, will side with me. Men who are lying do not make that bet, because the bet has a judge attached.

What the Transfer Order Tells You

The second entry deserves its own attention, because it is easy to skim past. "Order Transferring AntiHarassment Case to Superior Court."

Courts do not transfer cases for decoration. The anti-harassment matter was moved to Superior Court, the level of the Washington court system where the county's most serious civil matters are heard, and placed before Judge Elizabeth A. Stanley. The docket then shows the machinery of a real case turning: a Notice of Appearance, meaning counsel formally entered the record, and a Notice of Disqualification, part of the process that ensures the matter lands before a judge both sides can accept.

None of this is the stuff of drama. All of it is the stuff of legitimacy. A case with these entries is a case moving through the system exactly as the system is designed to work, with forms filed, jurisdiction set, and a judge assigned. When this series later reports what that judge decided, remember this day, because the decision only means what it means if the process was real. The docket says it was real.

The Sourcing, Stated Plainly

This series deals in documented facts, so the sourcing of what follows in later installments belongs in print here.

The public docket mirror on Trellis.Law was last refreshed on August 9, 2025, one day after the filing and before the merits hearing. Everything this article describes, the filing, the case type, the parties, the judge, the four August 8 entries, is visible on that public mirror, and any reader can check it. The case outcomes that this series covers in its next installment, including the order granted on August 26, 2025, come from TROH's case file and are consistent with that public docket, though not independently visible on the free mirror. Every element is checkable against the court file itself, and we invite the check.

The blog attributed to the respondent has published its own 2026 articles about later disputes, including claims about separate proceedings in King County. Those are unverified claims by the adverse party's own outlet, and they do not touch the case filed on August 8, 2025. This article is about that filing, and the docket that records it is public.

The Bottom Line

On August 8, 2025, Ben Mavy stopped absorbing the blog's accusations and tested them. He filed a civil protection order petition in Clallam County Superior Court, case 25-2-00595-05, against Anthony Colin Tomashefsky. The docket from that day shows a Law Enforcement and Confidential Information Form, an order transferring the anti-harassment matter to Superior Court, a Notice of Disqualification, and a Notice of Appearance, with Judge Elizabeth A. Stanley presiding.

A private citizen signed his name, swore to his account, and asked a court to judge it. The man who had been writing about him answered with silence, which is a story for the next installment: August 26, 2025, the day of the empty chair.

Sources: Trellis.Law public docket mirror, Benjamin A. Mavy v. Anthony Colin Tomashefsky, Clallam County Superior Court, case 25-2-00595-05 ([link](https://trellis.law/case/53009/25-2-00595-05/benjamin-a-mavy-vs-anthony-colin-tomashefsky)); TROH case file. Adverse-party blog articles cited as claims only, unverified.