Premeditation is usually argued from inference. In the case of the Olympic Herald, it can be read off a calendar. Every date below is a public record: a court docket, a signed order, a domain registry entry, or the site's own archive. The order of the dates is the story.
August 7, 2025, the petition. Benjamin Mavy petitions for a stalking and anti-harassment protection order against Anthony Tomashefsky in Clallam County; the matter transfers to Superior Court the next day as case No. 25-2-00595-05, per the procedural history in Judge W. Brent Basden's later memorandum opinion.
August 12, 2025, the temporary order. Both parties appear on the ex parte calendar; Tomashefsky is given the opportunity to say why an order should not issue. The court issues a temporary protection order and sets the merits hearing for August 26. In handwritten findings on that order, the court notes that Tomashefsky did not deny the volume of his emails to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department about Mavy and declined to state a purpose for them, describing a record of long-standing rancor aimed at seeing Mavy prosecuted.
August 13, 2025, first revision denied. Tomashefsky moves to revise the temporary order. The court denies the motion the same day and strikes his self-scheduled hearing as improperly set, per the memorandum opinion's history.
August 22–25, 2025, the email. Tomashefsky emails the court administrator that the August 26 hearing "must be stricken," signaling a motion under RCW 4.105, Washington's anti-SLAPP statute. The court administrator informs him that an email does not change court dates, and that he may schedule a hearing or appear at the one already set.
August 26, 2025, the hearing he did not attend. "Petitioner appeared for that hearing, but Respondent did not," the memorandum opinion records. The court commissioner grants the protection order. On its face, the order checks two boxes, harassment and stalking, restrains Anthony Tomashefsky, protects Benjamin Mavy, and carries a handwritten end date: August 26, 2027. The following day, August 27, the commissioner issues a further memorandum opinion and order rejecting the anti-SLAPP theory.
September 2025, reconsideration denied. After a detour through a motion for reconsideration, denied September 15, Tomashefsky files on September 25 the motion for revision that a superior court judge would finally decide.
October 21, 2025. "amply supports." Judge Basden files his memorandum opinion and order. On the merits: "Respondent alleges that the record does not support the finding of harassment and stalking. On the contrary, the record amply supports the conclusion that Respondent has engaged in this behavior." On the press-shield theory: "The protection order does not limit speech, it limits conduct." On the anti-SLAPP statute: RCW 4.105 does not apply to anti-harassment orders under RCW 7.105. On the absence: "He chose not to appear at the hearing." The motion is denied. "The protection order remains in place."
It was not Tomashefsky's first loss on this subject. In 2023, his own anti-harassment petition against Mavy, case No. 23-2-00372-05, was denied for insufficient evidence after a full hearing.
December 26, 2025, 01:11:15 UTC, the domain. Sixty-six days after the memorandum opinion, olympicherald.com is registered through Squarespace Domains. TROH verified the timestamp this week against Verisign's RDAP record, the registry of record for .com. A man with a fresh, written, judicial finding that he stalked and harassed another man now owned a web address he would dress up as the area's newspaper. He bought no newsroom, no printing press, no staff. He registered a domain name and started a newsletter.
January 7, 2026, the launch. Twelve days after the registration, the site's first post appears: "Announcing The Olympic Herald," an essay decrying billionaire-captured media. The operation was a fake newsletter masquerading as a real herald of the local area: a civic name, a newspaper's posture, a donate button, and behind it a one-man Substack blog. It does not mention the protection order, the denied revision, or that the site's sole author is the restrained party in case No. 25-2-00595-05.
January 12–16, 2026, the campaign begins. By January 12 the site is publishing accusations against Brian Parker, the commissioner who signed the protection order. By January 16 it has published its first article about a local psychologist. In time, the archive grows to 425 posts: a TROH review finds 109 referencing Judge Basden, 58 referencing Parker, 17 referencing Mavy, and 11 referencing two local psychologists. The judge who denied the revision, the commissioner who granted the order, the man who petitioned for it, the site's reading list is the case caption.
The community noticed the timing without the docket. When the r/PortAngeles2 thread dissected the site in February 2026, the author's first observation was: "The domain was purchased two months ago, and redirects to a substack blog." The registry confirms the observation to the day.
One fact belongs to the other side of the ledger, and we include it: Tomashefsky has written in the Olympic Herald that he appealed the protection order on October 21, 2025, to the Washington Court of Appeals, Division Two. The appeal is his right, and its existence is stated here from his own publication. What the appeal does not change is the sequence.
A court heard the evidence and ruled against him. His motion to undo that ruling was denied in a written opinion. Two months later he launched his fake newspaper, and within weeks the site was publishing, about the judge, the commissioner, the petitioner, and the evaluators, at a pace of multiple articles a week, under a donate button.
The domain purchase is the premeditation. Not because anyone says so, but because December 26, 2025 sits where it sits on the calendar: after the last ruling, before the first article.
This article relies on public court records and public complaints. TROH welcomes a response from Mr. Tomashefsky and will publish it in full.