Settlement reached in lawsuit over petition that accused a Bucks County gym owner of involvement in Capitol insurrection

A Doylestown man has issued a public apology as part of a settlement in a lawsuit filed by a Bucks County gym owner over an online petition that was interpreted as claiming the gym owner was involved in organizing buses to go to the U.S. Capitol the day of the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The petition, created on MoveOn.org by Gregory Bullough, called on people and businesses to boycott Jim Worthington’s Newtown Athletic Club over Worthington’s alleged involvement in the insurrection. Worthington filed a defamation lawsuit in April 2021 alleging that Bullough’s petition, as well as the website where it was hosted, were responsible for publishing “false, malicious and defamatory” accusations.

In his apology, Bullough said that his petition was “widely interpreted” as claiming Worthington sponsored and organized busloads of rioters to participate in the Jan. 6 insurrection, but those allegations are “untrue and did not happen.”

“While I earnestly endeavored to base my petition on public information, to the extent my petition included language and imagery which allowed readers to add their own interpretations beyond what I intended which harmed Jim Worthington, his family and his business, I am sorry for that,” Bullough’s apology read. “I also regret the harm caused to the Newtown Athletic Club’s community partners because of those interpretations of my petition.”

Worthington, The Inquirer previously reported, became a controversial figure in 2020 after reopening his 25,000-square-foot gym amid coronavirus closure orders. He was known as a prominent supporter of former President Donald Trump, and helped form a political advocacy group called People4Trump.

People4Trump organized three buses to transport 200 people from Bucks County to attend Trump’s Washington, D.C., rally on Jan. 6, according to the lawsuit. Worthington, meanwhile, traveled separately, and arrived in Washington on Jan. 5. The complaint says that Worthington, who was not among those charged in connection with the riot, did not participate in criminal acts, or go to the Capitol.

In his apology, Bullough wrote that he “accepts [Worthington’s] word on these points.” He added that he would make a “substantial contribution” to the Newtown Athletic Club’s Have-A-Heart Foundation, which benefits a friend of Worthington’s who has battled ALS for about a decade.

“There is a lesson to be learned from this — the division in our public discourse is hurting our country at a time when we need to be united,” Worthington said in a statement. “We can disagree, and we can even disagree forcefully, but at the end of the day we are all members of this community, and we should treat each other with dignity and respect.”

Bullough’s settlement comes months following another public apology from Democratic Congressional candidate Ashley Ehasz and Foglamp Digital, which assisted Ehasz with online campaign strategy. In January 2022, Foglamp Digital sent a fundraising email on Ehasz’s behalf claiming that Worthington funded buses to take people to the Jan. 6 insurrection, and that Worthington was a “major funder” of the insurrection.