A white Texas student's life was turned upside down by a hate hoax perpetrated by a black acquaintance's mother, Summer Smith, and her lawyer, Kim Cole.
Smith and Cole were at last visited by consequence on Jan. 22, when a Texas judge awarded the student, Asher Vann, $3.2 million in attorneys fees and damages from the duo.
A mother's hate hoax
Smith, of Plano, Texas, came forward in March 2021 with allegations about her black son's supposed bullying by a white acquaintance and other classmates.
'They knowingly and intentionally launched a crusade of false facts, allegations, and narratives to create a social media and public outrage.'
After lobbing various accusations and sharing images of minors from the Plano Independent School District online, Smith held a press conference where she alleged that her then-13-year-old son, SeMarion Humphrey, was subjected to racially charged abuse, forced to drink urine from a plastic cup, shot with BB guns at a sleepover, and threatened so that he would not speak out.
"This is not a prank. This is beyond bullying. You are evil. They are evil," Smith said at the press conference.
Cole — a lawyer who briefly represented Karmelo Anthony, the man accused of murdering 17-year-old Austin Metcalf at a track meet last year — claimed that the supposed abuse at the sleepover was "pre-calculated" and "racially motivated" and alleged further that Humphrey's peers used racial and "homophobic" slurs against him.
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Photographer: Angel Garcia/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The duo's claims were not only gobbled up by Dominique Alexander, the founder of Next Generation Action Network, and other leftist activists who demanded "justice" and marched with the supposed victim but amplified by the liberal media and in a viral petition that secured over 182,000 signatures.
The school district, faced with intense scrutiny after Smith's press conference, launchedan investigation into the matter. The Plano Police Department similarly indicated that it was looking into the matter.
Facing similar pressure, then-Plano Mayor Harry LaRosiliere joined other officials in condemning the alleged "abhorrent behavior" and spoke of the need to "end bullying and racial abuse in our school and certainly in our community."
The false victim narrative that prompted all this hand-wringing initially proved lucrative for Smith.
With Cole's help, Smith was able to raise nearly $120,000 on GoFundMe in the name of therapy, private schooling, and "justice for SeMarion."
The Washington Free Beacon, citing court records, reported that less than $1,000 of the money raised went toward Humphrey's schooling. The rest was blown on luxuriesincluding dining, travel, beauty products, liquor, cell phones, car payments, rent, and a designer dog.
While Smith raked in the cash, Asher Vann, the white student accused of organizing the alleged attack on Humphrey, was vilified and attacked.
"I was getting death threats from thousands of people on social media," Vann told the Free Beacon. "People leaked my address and my name. During one of the protests, they walked all the way to my house and threw bricks through my house."
"It was scary," continued Vann, whose family apparently often looked after Humphrey. "These were adults, and I was in middle school at the time. Full-grown adults were rushing my house and causing harm to it. What if I was home and they saw me? They could have ripped me from my home and beaten me. It was very scary."
In addition to bricks and vitriol, Vann was slapped along with some of his friends with criminal charges — charges that a grand jury declined to accept and a Plano Police Department officer admitted last year likely lacked probable cause, the Free Beacon reported.
A father's justice
Aaron Vann ultimately sued Cole and Smith on behalf of his son, Asher.
The lawsuit accused the duo of:
- creating an "outrageously false narrative for the purposes of raising money and garnering attention, at the expense of children's privacy";
- invasion of privacy, noting that Smith and Cole apparently publicized the teen's name and address "with the express purpose of causing humiliation, public ridicule, and inspiring public hatred and harassment" of the teen; and
- acting "intentionally and/or recklessly, when they knowingly and intentionally launched a crusade of false facts, allegations, and narratives to create a social media and public outrage designed to torment [Asher] and subject him to intense ridicule, hatred, embarrassment, and fear – all based on facts Defendants knew to be false."
According to Plano Police Department Officer Patricia McClure's 2025 testimony cited by the Beacon, the boys attending the sleepover apparently went outside with airsoft rifles and BB guns in search of frogs during a winter storm. Absent any sign of amphibian targets, the boys reportedly took turns shooting one another. Later, they pranked one another.
Vann suggested to the Beacon that there was no ill will between him and Humphrey after the sleepover but that Smith later caught wind of the events and pushed an alternate version in the press.
The case was called to trial in late October, and a jury — which included four black members — found that Smith and Cole effectively blew up Asher Vann's life with a false narrative.
Judge Benjamin Smith of Texas' 380th Judicial District Court ruled late last month that for their "intentional infliction of emotional distress and invasion of privacy" against the young man, Smith and her lawyer must each pay $1,599,000, accruing interest at a rate of 7.5% per annum. The judge also ordered both women to each pay several thousand dollars more for Vann's attorney fees.
Smith told the Beacon she plans on filing an appeal and maintains that her preferred narrative is the truth. Cole did not return Blaze News' request for comment.
This is not the Vann family's first court victory in recent years.
The Vanns took the Plano Independent School District to court after it suspended Asher Vann for three days and placed him in an off-campus disciplinary program for 75 days amid Smith's hate hoax campaign. In 2022, a U.S. district court found that the district had indeed violated the boy's substantive due process rights.
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