MAGA Avondale official sues over now-dismissed kidnapping claim

Last year, right-wing Avondale City Councilmember Jeannette Garcia made a name for herself when she brashly and baselessly called actor Tom Hanks a “pedo” on social media. The accusation drew widespread rebukes and led to a half-hearted walkback from Garcia.

Now, the Avondale official and Turning Point USA employee has found herself on the other end of that equation, having been hit with an apparently false allegation that she kidnapped a coworker’s daughter in 2024.

As Phoenix New Times reported last year, a then-anonymous man sued Garcia in November, claiming that a year earlier she had abducted his daughter from his home and kept the girl overnight. The man, who worked for Turning Point along with Garcia chasing ballots in the waning days of the 2024 election, also claimed that Garcia had drunkenly propositioned him.

At the time, Garcia blasted those allegations as patently false, and subsequent events seem to have proven her right. Roughly two months after the lawsuit was filed, the man voluntarily dismissed it. Now Garcia is hitting back. She has filed her own suit against the man and his lawyer, bolstered by records from the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office that directly refute the man’s claim.

Specifically, the records suggest that the man’s daughter was in fear of him in their home and that Garcia helped transport her to a safe location.

Filed last week in Maricopa County Superior Court, Garcia’s lawsuit identifies the Turning Point coworker as Chas Carter and names him as a defendant. Also defendants are his lawyer, Isaac P. Hernandez, and Hernandez’s law firm, Thunderbird Law Group. In the suit, Garcia accuses them of concocting a “manufactured scandal” to harm her reputation.

“Defendants did not merely accuse Jeannette Garcia of wrongdoing,” the new lawsuit states. “They accused her of one of the most stigmatizing and heinous crimes imaginable: kidnapping a child.”

Hernandez did not return messages seeking comment from him and Carter. New Times sent questions to Ryan Heath, the attorney for Garcia, but has not received a response.

According to the suit, Carter initially demanded $11 million from the city of Avondale to settle his claims, which he filed as “‘Father John Doe.” A copy of a May 2025 notice of claim, which repeats many of the allegations that would later appear in Carter’s lawsuit, is included as an exhibit in Garcia’s suit. In it, Carter demanded $1 million for himself and $10 million for his daughter.

Carter’s lawsuit was filed in November, making headlines in part because of the notoriety that Garcia had already won for herself as a bombastic MAGA defender. According to Garcia’s suit, it both completely misrepresented the events of the night in question and that Carter had legal custody of his daughter.

“Defendants knew exactly what they were doing when they chose the accusation they picked,” Garcia’s complaint reads. “Accusing an elected City Council Member of ‘kidnapping a child’ is uniquely inflammatory and predictably causes immediate, explosive harm — including professional, political, personal, and safety-related consequences.”

Different versions of events

Garcia’s version of events differs significantly from Carter’s. He claimed that Garcia made drunken sexual advances toward him at a Turning Point get-together following the 2024 election. Garcia denies that in her new suit. To the contrary, she claims Carter was the one who was overly intoxicated, adding that other people in their group begged him not to drive, a request he allegedly ignored.

Carter originally claimed that he came home to find his daughter was gone, only to learn that Garcia had come to pick her up without his knowledge. That may be generally true, but Garcia’s suit says it leaves out important context.

After Carter left the post-election celebration, Garcia says, his daughter called her. She says she had built a relationship with the girl through Carter’s involvement with Turning Point, and that she had also called Garcia once earlier in the night. Per Garcia’s suit, the girl “was scared and asked Garcia to come get her,” and also asked if Garcia had a gun.

Garcia’s complaint says she found the girl “hiding in the bushes nearby” her home, “covered in thorny debris/spikes consistent with having concealed herself in vegetation.” Garcia then called police to inform them that the girl was with her and took her to a nearby fire station “to coordinate with law enforcement.”

Sheriff’s Office records included with Garcia’s suit back up that claim. Dispatch and call logs from the night in question state that the girl’s friend called police at about 12:40 a.m. to report that Carter’s daughter was hiding outside because her “father came home drunk” and the girl was “terrified that father is going to beat her.” The friend reported that Carter, who is identified as the father in the logs, “was slamming things around.”

Within five minutes of that initial 911 call, the logs report that Garcia had picked up the daughter and was taking her to a fire station.

Garcia’s lawsuit also says that the daughter’s boyfriend called 911 as well because Carter showed up at his home, “harassed him, and attempted to instigate a physical confrontation.” The complaint alleges that Carter “was driving aggressively (including doing wheelies in front of the boyfriend’s home).” Sheriff’s Office logs reflect that deputies were informed that Carter may have obtained the boyfriend’s address.

Garcia says the daughter’s grandparents — who actually had legal guardianship over her, rather than Carter — signed off on Garcia keeping the girl for the night. The call logs include similar information.

The logs also suggest that just after 2 a.m., deputies spoke with Carter. He claimed his daughter was “crying wolf” because she was “recently in trouble due to smoking marijuana.” He agreed to “let the situation end tonight since his daughter is in a safe location.” Carter’s daughter returned home the next day, and no charges were ever filed against him.

Do your homework

Garcia’s lawsuit says that Hernandez, who represented Carter in the first lawsuit, should have known all this before he hit up Avondale for $11 million and before he made explosive claims against Garcia in a lawsuit. Hernandez “had months — not hours — to investigate before filing the (lawsuit) accusing an elected City Council Member of ‘kidnapping’ a child,” the suit reads. More than six months passed between the notice of claim and the lawsuit, “long enough for any competent attorney to obtain and review basic, foundational materials before publishing a highly stigmatized criminal narrative in public court records,” Garcia’s suit continues.

The State Bar of Arizona database lists no history of professional discipline for Hernandez. A state bar spokesperson was not able to immediately say if there are open bar complaints against Hernandez.

Garcia is suing for abuse of process, wrongful institution of civil proceedings and intentional infliction of emotional distress. She is notably not suing for defamation, and her attorney did not respond to a question from New Times asking if such a claim had been considered.

The Avondale official says that she has suffered in several ways as a result of the false kidnapping claim. Garcia says she stopped attending her church for three weeks after the accusations were made public and only recently resumed working as a youth leader for junior high girls at the church. She has feared that her son could be targeted for kidnapping and has avoided public spaces. She has also beefed up her home security and says she received threats online and through Avondale City Council channels.

Whether the ordeal has caused Garcia any introspection about tossing around her own frivolous accusations is not clear. Her attorney did not answer a question along those lines.