Defeating a $1.2 Million Miss Pennsylvania Lawsuit

The Case at a Glance

1. March to May 2024: Robyn Kass-Gerji receives threatening texts while preparing to compete for Miss Pennsylvania.
2. May 29 and June 5, 2024: After a two-day hearing, a D.C. Superior Court judge finds that fellow contestant Victoria Vespico sent the texts and enters a two-year anti-stalking order.
3. March 2025: Vespico sues Kass-Gerji in federal court for $1.2 million.
4. May 2025: Litson moves to dismiss.
5. March 16, 2026: The court dismisses every claim with prejudice.

The Threats

The texts arrived between March and May 2024, in the months before the state competition. When the federal court ruled on Vespico’s lawsuit two years later, it opened its opinion with words from the texts: “I am going to kill you, Robyn. … I will burn you. You will die.”

Kass-Gerji petitioned the D.C. Superior Court for protection. After a two-day hearing in late May and early June 2024, the judge found that:

• Vespico sent the threatening texts.
• Vespico made a threat in person.
• Kass-Gerji had not fabricated evidence.

He entered a two-year anti-stalking order. Kass-Gerji withdrew from the pageant.

After the order was entered, Kass-Gerji spoke publicly about the threats. Several media outlets covered the story, including the Daily Mail in July 2024.

The Lawsuit

In March 2025, Vespico sued Kass-Gerji, the Daily Mail, and its reporter in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. She asked for $1.2 million and a jury trial.

Vespico alleged that Kass-Gerji had fabricated the threats and defamed her. She targeted both the anti-stalking order and Kass-Gerji’s statements to the press, with three claims:

• Abuse of process, for seeking the anti-stalking order
• Defamation per se, for describing the threats
• False light, for the same statements

The Defense Strategy

Litson PLLC moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim. The motion argued that the D.C. court’s findings and settled law foreclosed each of Vespico’s claims.

The Question Was Already Decided

The D.C. court had already decided who sent the texts. Vespico had a full and fair opportunity to litigate the issue. She took part in the two-day hearing, testified, and lost.

Under the doctrine of collateral estoppel, she could not relitigate those findings by recasting them as new claims in a different court. Because the D.C. findings established the truth of what Kass-Gerji said, the defamation and false light claims failed.

Using the Process as Intended

On the abuse-of-process claim, Litson argued that D.C. law reaches only a perversion of the process itself. Using a court process to get the relief it was designed to provide does not qualify.

Kass-Gerji asked a court for protection and received it. The federal court agreed that the anti-stalking process “was used for its intended purpose.”

The Resolution

On March 16, 2026, Judge Julia K. Munley granted the motion and dismissed every claim against Kass-Gerji with prejudice. The court resolved the case on the pleadings, holding that each claim failed as a matter of law.

In a 33-page opinion, the court held that the D.C. proceedings were dispositive. “The subject matter was credibility, not congeniality,” the court wrote. “Having contested the truth about the matter fully and lost on the merits, Vespico is attempting to relitigate the same factual determinations through different causes of action in a different forum.”

$1.2 million demanded. $0 in damages.

All three claims were dismissed with prejudice, and the case never went to trial.

The court also found that Pennsylvania’s anti-SLAPP statute, which protects people sued over speech on matters of public concern, “may well apply.” Litson has since moved for an award of attorney’s fees under the statute.

Ms. Kass-Gerji was subjected to serious threats and then to litigation designed to silence her. The dismissal with prejudice means that she can hopefully put this behind her.

Ted Canter and Alex Little, Litson PLLC

What This Outcome Means

Litigation against people who report threats or harassment can function as a second form of intimidation. Even meritless claims force the defendant to relive what happened and pay for a defense, and they chill speech on matters of public concern.

The Kass-Gerji ruling shows that prior court findings can blunt that tactic. Once a court has heard the evidence and resolved the disputed facts, collateral estoppel can bar a later suit from relitigating them. Pennsylvania’s anti-SLAPP statute, enacted in 2024, may provide an additional safeguard.

Read the March 2026 press release.

The Litson Team

Ted Canter led the defense, drawing on his experience as a former federal prosecutor. Alex Little worked alongside him on the case.

Richard L. Armezzani of Myers, Brier & Kelly, LLP, served as local counsel.

Dismissed with prejudice March 16, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, Case No. 3:25-cv-00512-JKM.