In May, a group of right-wing “undercover journalists” descended on a hotel in Michigan to prepare for a clandestine operation. Some of them were alums of Project Veritas, the conservative group known for elaborate sting operations targeting liberal organizations, journalists and unions.
They came to the city of Dearborn, which has a large Arab population, to infiltrate pro-Palestinian groups. But the effort was derailed on their first day in town when they got drunk and rowdy at their hotel, and the leader of the group was hauled off in handcuffs after he hurled insults and expletives at police officers, according to a police report and bodycam video obtained by NBC News.
The man at the center of the fracas was Michael Spadone, a former Project Veritas field director. In that role he oversaw staffers who used hidden cameras to embarrass people Project Veritas targeted.
But after 1 a.m. on May 24, Spadone was the one being recorded on video — a police body camera — as he threatened officers with the Dearborn Police Department.
“It’s amazing these f–kers hate America so much,” Spadone said during the 81-minute encounter.
“Weak-ass motherfu–ers,” he added. “If they took their vest off and their badges, they’d get knocked the f–k out. Every one of you would get knocked the f–k out. Choked the f–k out.”
He repeated the threat. Then he hurled a homophobic slur: “Bunch of weak-ass f—ing f—–s.”
Spadone, 39, was arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and trespassing. He has pleaded not guilty. It’s not clear who Spadone and the others were working for, or which groups they were targeting. James O’Keefe, the Project Veritas founder, was ousted from the nonprofit last year. He went on to form a new media venture with a similar mission.
A lawyer for O’Keefe, Jeffrey Lichtman, said Spadone doesn’t work for him now and “didn’t at the time of the alleged incident.”
Project Veritas said Spadone was no longer an employee and wasn’t working on its behalf at the time of the police encounter.
Spadone’s lawyer, Zachary Glaza, declined to comment. He said Spadone also had no comment.
Before Spadone left Project Veritas, he was the subject of a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a former administrative assistant. The married staffer, Antonietta Zappier, accused him of groping and kissing her at a company Christmas party in 2021. The suit was settled last year.
Local Muslim leaders said they suspected that Spadone’s team planned to target an event bringing together several pro-Palestinian groups and activists that weekend — the People’s Conference on Palestine.
“I assume it had something to do with that,” said Amer Zahr, a Palestinian American lawyer and activist who lives in Dearborn, which has the largest Muslim population per capita in the country.
Zahr shrugged off the presence of the right-wing journalists.
“Sadly, in Dearborn we are not strangers to people from outside our community trying to intimidate us, surveil us, threaten us,” he said. “That’s been happening since Oct. 7 and way before Oct. 7.”
The incident took place at the Henry Hotel. Soon after the police officers arrived, they were met by a member of the hotel’s staff who explained why they wanted to evict the group.
“They were drinking a lot. At least half of them were very intoxicated,” the staffer told the officers, according to the video. “They were dropping profanities left and right, and were super loud.”
The staffer escorted the officers to a room on the third floor. It was 1:13 a.m. Spadone opened the door and was told his group was being evicted.
Over the next two minutes, the commanding officer repeated eight times that whoever was in the room had to leave. But Spadone seemed unable — or unwilling — to understand the order.
“Tell us what you’re doing right now,” Spadone said. “You have not told us anything.”
“Do you understand what the word eviction means?” the officer asked, clearly exasperated.
“I do not understand. Tell us exactly what you are doing.”
And then the officer did for the ninth time.
Spadone eventually left the room and walked into the one next door. Three people with him — a man and two women — also left the room.
When the officers entered the second room, they found Spadone lying on the bed. The officers warned him that he would be arrested for trespassing if he didn’t leave, but Spadone continued jawing at them.
“Are you guys Americans? Do you care about America?” he said. “Do you care about the future? Do you care about what’s going to fu–ing happen in this country?”
“Do you care about the people in this hotel right now?” the officer shot back.
Over the next few minutes, Spadone became increasingly hostile.“You trying to intimidate me right now makes you look like a f—ing f—-t,” he said to one of the officers, using a homophobic slur.
“Any of you guys wrestle? Any cauliflower ears?” he said a few minutes later. “I can take all three of you guys right now. Easy.”
Spadone finally left the room with his luggage. As the group waited for a car to take them to a different hotel, they began arguing among themselves.
“You guys are all being weak motherf—ers,” Spadone said to one of the women.
“Weak motherf—ers?” she said. “I worked for you for three years. You’re going to call me a weak motherf—er.”
He called her a child, told her to “grow the f–k up” and then said she was fired.
“You’re really going to fire me for this?” she said. “F–k you.”
Throughout the encounter, that woman and the other man were deferential and apologetic to the officers. But the other woman followed his lead in acting belligerent towards them.
Two former Project Veritas employees identified that woman as an ex-Project Veritas journalist who has reportedly organized rallies for followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory.
When the officers had first shown up outside their room, she mocked them and took pictures of them. Then she complained that her group hadn’t been warned about being too loud.
The officer told her hotel staff members had knocked on the door but nobody answered. “That’s false,” she said.
At that moment, a hotel guest walking down the hall interjected.
“Well, I’m a witness. It’s f—ing true,” the guest said.
“Really?” the ex-Project Veritas journalist replied.
“Yes, I’m right over here trying to get some sleep,” the woman said.
“Oh, waaa,” the journalist said, mimicking someone crying.
“When is she leaving?” the woman asked the cops.
“Right now,” one replied.
“What’s your name, ma’am? Are you an American citizen?” the journalist asked.
“I know you better get the f–k out of my face,” the woman said. “White trash.”
“Yeah, f—ing brown trash bitch,” the journalist responded.
Outside the hotel, several minutes passed as the group, now joined by its director of security, waited for an Uber. The journalist complained that the officers weren’t letting her back into the hotel to find her car keys.
“Honestly, if I could just, like, have my keys, I’d be f—ing fine with you f—–s, but I’m not,” she said, using a homophobic slur.
Moments later, the officers moved in to arrest Spadone. It was 2:34 a.m. More than 80 minutes had passed since they first told him to leave the hotel.
“You didn’t give me a chance to leave,” Spadone said as the officers cuffed him. “This was the first time you told me to leave.”
Spadone was driven off in a patrol car. The others left in an Uber a few minutes later.
The only person left behind was the security director, who then explained to the officers what the group was up to. “So the long and short of it is, we’re in town to do undercover journalism on a pro-Palestinian rally that is going on in Dearborn and there is another one in Detroit next weekend,” he said.
“Everybody flew in today and they’re doing all this undercover stuff, trying to figure out where the funding is coming from,” he added.
He said the group was planning to “infiltrate” the upcoming pro-Palestinian rallies, according to a police report.
The security director said he and the other security guard spent the day “doing reconnaissance” and then they met up with the journalists who had flown in that evening, according to the video footage. The two security guys went to bed but he was awakened by a phone call from the journalists’ boss, whose name was bleeped out in the bodycam video.
“She goes, ‘You need to go to the lobby and figure out what the f–k is going on,’” he said.
The officers listened quietly. When he finished speaking, one of them deadpanned: “For being undercover, they’re not very good at it.”
