On October 27, the Capital Pride Alliance, a Washington, D.C.-based LGBTQ organization that organizes the annual Pride event, filed a civil complaint against local LGBTQ activist and former volunteer Darren Pasha, accusing him of harassing, threatening, and stalking Capital Pride staff, executives, and volunteers over a one-year period.
The complaint, filed in D.C. Superior Court, was accompanied by a separate motion seeking a court restraining order, preliminary injunction, and anti-stalking order prohibiting Pasha from “further contacting, harassing, threatening, or interfering with Plaintiff, its staff, officers, volunteers, or affiliates.”
On Oct. 28, a judge issued an “initial order” setting a scheduling conference date for the case on Feb. 6, 2026, according to online court records. As of the end of the business day on Friday, November 7, the judge had not ruled on Capital Pride’s request for an injunction and restraining order.
According to court records, Pasha filed a response to the complaint on Nov. 5 denying all allegations that he targeted, stalked, or engaged in any other inappropriate conduct with Capital Pride officers or volunteers.
“It is clear that this document is full of false, misleading and unsubstantiated claims,” Pasha said in his response, adding that “no reliable or admissible evidence has been provided” to meet the legal requirements for a stalking prevention order.
Capital Pride’s complaint includes an 18-page legal brief outlining the allegations against Pasha and an additional 167-page addendum of “corroborating evidence” including multiple statements by witnesses whose names are blacked out in the court filing.
Capital Pride’s complaint states: “Over the past year, Defendant Darren Dorshad Pasha (“DSP”) has engaged in an ongoing and escalating series of conduct directed at CPA, including repeated unwanted contact, harassment, intimidation, intimidation, manipulation, and coercive conduct directed at CPA staff, officers, volunteers, and affiliates.”
It continues: “This conduct includes physical intimidation, unwanted physical contact, deception to gain unauthorized access to events, retaliatory threats, abusive digital communications, proxy-based harassment, and willful defiance of systematic bans or protective orders.”
The comprehensive anti-stalking order requested in Capital Pride’s court filing would prohibit Mr. Pasha from interacting in person, online or electronically with “all current and future staff, officers and volunteers of Capital Pride Alliance, Inc.”
The proposed order adds that “defendants shall remain at least 200 yards from Capital Pride Alliance’s principal offices” and “at least 200 yards from all Capital Pride Alliance events, event venues, related activities, and related gatherings.”
The reason for these restrictions is that Pasha’s conduct toward Capital Pride staff, executives, and volunteers rose to the level of causing them fear for their safety, “alarming, agitating, or frightening,” or causing emotional distress, as defined by Washington, D.C.’s anti-stalking law, according to the complaint.
Among the Capital Pride officials identified and included in the complaint with statements supporting the allegations against Pasha are former Capital Pride Alliance Board Chair Ashley Smith and Capital Pride Alliance Vice Chair June Crenshaw.
“I am making this declaration based on my personal knowledge in support of the CPA’s petition for a civil stalking order (ASO) against Darren Pasha,” Smith said in a court statement. “My concerns regarding the defendant are based on my personal interactions with him and reports I have received from other members of the CPA community,” Smith said.
Capital Pride’s complaint against Pasha and its supporting documents were filed by Washington, D.C. attorney Nick Harrison of the local law firm Harrison Stein PC.
In a 16-page response to the complaint, which he claims he wrote without the help of a lawyer, Pasha said the complaint against Capital Pride appears to be in retaliation for his dispute with Capital Pride and then-chairman Ashley Smith over the past year.
His response said that Capital Pride’s announcement last month that it had become aware of “allegations” about Mr. Smith, that he had resigned as president of the board on Oct. 18, and that it had launched an investigation into the allegations, supports his contention that Mr. Smith’s resignation is related to his year-long claims that Mr. Smith has damaged his reputation.
In his response to Smith’s charges against Capital Pride, Pasha accuses Smith of using his position as director of the Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBTQ advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., to persuade HRC to terminate his volunteer position with HRC and bar him from participating in future HRC events. He believes HRC’s actions against him are due to “defamatory” allegations made against him by Smith in connection with an ongoing dispute with him.
Capital Pride’s complaint alleges that HRC staff said Pasha was removed from his volunteer role after allegedly engaging in abusive and inappropriate behavior toward HRC staff and other volunteers.
Capital Pride has so far declined to disclose the reason for Smith’s resignation pending an internal investigation.
Capital Pride Alliance announced Smith’s resignation and said in a statement, a copy of which was sent to the Washington Blade, “The CPA recently became aware of the allegations made regarding him. The organization has hired an independent firm to begin an investigation and has taken the necessary steps to make partner service providers available to those involved.”
“To protect the integrity of the process and the privacy of all involved, CPA will not be sharing any further information at this time,” the statement added.
Mr. Smith did not respond to the Blade’s request for comment, and Capital Pride declined to say whether Mr. Smith’s resignation had any connection to Mr. Pasha’s allegations.
Capital Pride’s complaint “seeks to characterize what I would characterize as posing a sufficient threat to warrant the issuance of a Civil Anti-Stalking Order (CAO), but no reliable or admissible evidence has been provided to meet the legal elements required by DC Code 22-3133,” Pasha said in his response.
“The CPA’s allegations do not prove any such conduct on my part, but rather appear to be a plot to discredit and retaliate against me for raising legitimate concerns regarding the conduct of the former board chair,” he said in his response.
In a legal memorandum supporting its complaint and request for a non-stalking order against Pasha, Capital Pride provides a list of D.C. Superior Court records showing that Pasha has previously been served with several anti-stalking orders in cases unrelated to Capital Pride, violated the orders, and been arrested in at least two of them.
“The fundamental justification for granting permission is that [Anti-Stalking Order] “Defendant’s extensive recent criminal history demonstrates a propensity for defiance of judicial safeguards. This history suggests that systemic prohibition alone will not be sufficient to deter his actions, and that the current situation has risen to the point of requiring coercive judicial enforcement,” the complaint states.
“In or about June 2025, the defendant was allegedly convicted of multiple counts of violating an existing anti-stalking order in matters unrelated to Capital Pride Alliance (“CPA”), resulting in consecutive sentences and establishing a pattern of contempt of judicial custody,” Pasha said in a court response to Capital Pride’s complaint.
“These allegations are unrelated to the issues currently before the court,” his response continues. “The events cited are completely unrelated to the underlying allegations of the CPA and civil anti-stalking order claims. Moreover, each of these prior matters has been fully adjudicated, resolved, and dismissed and therefore cannot serve as a basis to justify the issuance of a permanent civil anti-stalking order in this unrelated proceeding.”
He added in his response that “reliance on such priors is misleading, prejudicial and legally insufficient.”
Source: Washington Blade: LGBTQ News, Politics, LGBTQ Rights, Gay News – www.washingtonblade.com
