Churchgoers Arrested For Not Wearing Masks Outdoors Gain MASSIVE Settlement From College Town

Three churchgoers from Idaho have settled a lawsuit after being arrested in 2020 for worshipping outdoors without a mask and violating social distancing regulations.

Moscow, Idaho, police arrested Gabriel Rench, Sean Bohnet, and Rachel Bohnet for refusing to follow the COVID cult.

The trio participated in a protest of the unlawful regulations by refusing to wear masks, singing psalms, and standing close together outside of City Hill, according to KHQ.

The three Christ Church members sued the city for violating their religious rights.

Three years later, the churchgoers will share a $300,000 settlement.

Three Christians arrested while maskless at an outdoor church service during the pandemic are being paid $300,000 by the city of Moscow, Idaho. https://t.co/34hFn052xp

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) July 20, 2023

KHQ has additional background:

Court documents say that Rench and the Bohnets declined to physically distance and provide identification to officers. Rench was arrested and booked into the Latah County Jail, but soon was released by Sheriff Richie Skiles.

Shortly later, Rench and the Bohnets filed a civil lawsuit against the city for wrongful arrest.

Now, two years later, Rench alongside the Bohnets have reached a settlement with the City of Moscow in which Idaho Counties Risk Management Program (ICRMP) will pay $300,000 and all claims against the City will be dismissed with prejudice along with a release of all liability.

“Moscow, home to the University of Idaho, is a town of approximately 25,000 people about 80 miles south of Spokane, Washington,” Fox News noted.

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Rench said he became a “pariah” in the mostly liberal college town following the arrest.

“I’m in a conservative state, but I live in a liberal town, and the liberals had no problem arresting me for practicing my religious rights and my Constitutional rights,” he told the outlet.

“But my [Republican] governor also didn’t defend me either. If you look at what’s going on in Canada, I think America’s 10 years, at most 20 years, behind Canada if we don’t make significant changes,” he added.

Fox News added:

Rench and the others were charged with violating the city’s repeatedly extended health ordinance, which carved out exemptions for activities protected under the U.S. Constitution and the Idaho State Constitution, including religious activity.

A magistrate judge later dismissed the city’s case against them, and U.S. District Court Judge Morrison C. England, Jr., wrote in his Feb. 1, 2023 memorandum and order denying the city’s motion to dismiss that the “plaintiffs should never have been arrested in the first place, and the constitutionality of what the City thought [its] code said is irrelevant.”

“Somehow, every single City official involved overlooked the exclusionary language [of constitutionally protected behavior] in the Ordinance,” the judge further wrote.

Rench told Fox News Digital that he has nevertheless become a pariah in his predominantly liberal community since the arrest and subsequent settlement. Rench says members of his community have accused him of being “an idiot” who does not “love his neighbor” and have urged him to “take your money and run” since the payout.

Rench described the situation in Moscow as a “microcosm” of issues happening nationwide and elsewhere.

“I think it’s no secret that portions of our government and political groups are now starting to target Christians in a way that has never really happened in America or Canada,” he said, noting how he knows some of the pastors who have been jailed in neighboring Canada in recent years for holding church services.

“I’m very grateful that I got a victory. How many people nationwide didn’t get a victory?” Rench said Monday on “Fox & Friends.”

“Liberalism is really turning into kind of a modern-day cult. They use coercion, they want power, and they have no real moral standard that is kind of fixed for them,” he said.

Watch the interview at Fox News.