Lawsuit alleges Byron Donalds threatened Collier County school board member in 2022

The Byron Donalds campaign is playing down a lawsuit filed by a Collier County school board member accusing the front-runner for the Republican nomination for governor of Florida of threatening and intimidating her during a confrontation at a Naples grocery store in 2022.

Kelly Mason was elected to the Collier County School Board in November 2022. In August of that year, she was involved in a heated verbal exchange with Donalds and a member of his staff that was captured on video and broadcast on a Fort Myers news station weeks later.

Mason alleges in her legal complaint that Donalds confronted her at the grocery store named Seed to Table over litigation that she had been involved against himself and his wife, Erika Donalds.

Mason alleges in her lawsuit that Byron Donalds “berated and insulted her and insisted that he could ‘crush’ or ‘finish’ her” during that confrontation. She also alleges that Donalds’ senior adviser, Larry Wilcoxson, “pursued Plaintiff through the store while yelling and creating a public disturbance.”

The lawsuit says that as a direct result of the confrontation, Mason suffered “emotional distress; mental anguish; humiliation; anxiety; fear for her own safety and the safety of her children; other damages to be proven at trial.”

The case has been filed in Collier County Circuit Court. Mason is represented by Lake County Commissioner and former Republican state House member Anthony Sabatini. She is asking for a trial by jury and compensatory damages, punitive damages, legal costs, prejudgment and post-judgement interest, and “other relief that this Court deems just and proper.”

The Donald campaign is slamming the lawsuit as politically motivated.

“This is a baseless, politically motivated attack and shameful publicity stunt designed to damage Byron Donalds in the 2026 election,” said communications director Gates McGavick. “This individual has a long history of unsuccessful litigation against the Donalds family. Floridians deserve better news coverage than lay reprints of a tabloid.”

The lawsuit comes less than six weeks before Florida Republicans go to the polls to decide on their nominee for governor. Donalds is dominating the race in both public opinion polls and fundraising.

Mason, going by the name of Kelly Lichter, did file a lawsuit along with other members of Mason Classical Academy against Byron Donalds, Erika Donalds, and several other individuals and organizations in U.S. District Court of the Middle District of Florida in 2022. That lawsuit arose over a public controversy surrounding management of Mason Classical Academy, a charter school that Mason founded in 2012.

Erika Donalds served on the Collier County School Board from 2014 to 2018 and has been a prominent advocate for the school choice movement in Florida.

Byron Donalds has served in Congress representing Southwest Florida since 2020. He previously served in the Florida House from 2016-2020.