Tay Anderson has a penchant for abusing the legal system to prove his victimhood. The last time the Denver Public Schools board member tried to use the courts to discredit his district’s investigation — the one that got him censured for “conduct unbecoming a board member” — the judge rebuked his arguments.

Once again, Anderson has failed to prove he is a victim.

Late Wednesday morning, Denver District Court Judge David H. Goldberg dismissed “with prejudice” most claims in a defamation lawsuit that Anderson filed last November against several defendants, including the organization Black Lives Matter 5280 and DPS mother Mary Katherine Brooks Fleming.

Under Colorado’s anti-SLAPP statute — which screens the viability of a defamation claim when invoked by a defendant — plaintiffs must demonstrate that they can succeed on the merits. The court dismissed most of Anderson’s lawsuit “with prejudice,” meaning Anderson cannot sue the defendants again over the same issue.

Anderson’s lawsuit particularly targeted BLM5280 and Fleming because he blames them for the ensuing investigation and its fallout. DPS hired Investigations Law Group to investigate sexual misconduct allegations against Anderson days after BLM5280 issued a statement in March 2021 accusing him of sexual assault on behalf of an anonymous woman.

Fleming testified at the legislature two months later, stating that DPS had a sexual predator in its midst. She did not name Anderson, but subsequent reporting was able to identify Anderson as the alleged perpetrator. Consequently, ILG expanded its investigation.

In Wednesday’s dismissal, Judge Goldberg analyzed Anderson’s defamation claims under anti-SLAPP. As he explained, Anderson has a higher burden of proof for defamatory statements that involve matters of public concern. This means the court must judge the falsity of a statement and ascertain whether it reaches the legal standard of “actual malice.”

Goldberg found that, for both BLM5280 and Fleming, their statements concerned matters of public interest. Consequently, their requests for dismissal were granted because Anderson failed to pass the next test: Proving “reasonable likelihood of prevailing” on his defamation claims by establishing the defendants acted with actual malice.

Anderson’s lawsuit also alleged that “the BLM Defendants conspired with Fleming … to label Anderson a sexual predator.” The judge dismissed the civil conspiracy claims.

“I knew it was a frivolous lawsuit … and the judge confirmed that it was a frivolous lawsuit,” Fleming’s lawyer, Igor Raykin, told me on KNUS Thursday. “With the legal standards being as high as they are, right from the inception, there is no way this lawsuit could have gone forward.”

This case is part of a pattern by Tay Anderson to use any means necessary to diminish the DPS investigation and its troubling findings. For example, his rap song “Slavin’ Up in DPS,” published in December, trivialized slavery and Anderson’s role on the DPS school board to paint himself as a victim. He likewise trivializes Colorado’s court system to achieve the same ends.

Back in February, Judge J. Eric Eliff ruled on a lawsuit concerning redactions in the DPS report. In that decision, the court debunked Anderson’s central argument that the Board’s investigation was unjustified.

“The bottom line is that Mr. Anderson was accused of serious recent sexual impropriety,” Eliff wrote. “There can be no serious dispute as to the authority of a school board to investigate claims of sexual assault and sexual harassment. … The failure to do so can lead to liability on the part of the school board.”

As I wrote at the time, “Truthfully, the most significant outcome of Monday’s ruling is how it vindicates DPS’s responsibility to investigate Tay Anderson’s conduct and behavior.”

In fact, DPS’s own investigation affirmed Anderson had on more than one occasion aggressively solicited inappropriate relationships with underaged schoolchildren — while a school board member and a candidate.

The report further found that allegations Anderson “made unwelcome sexual comments and advances, and/or engaged in unwelcome sexual contact toward members and associates of the Never-Again Colorado Board of Directors” were mostly “admitted/substantiated.” This conduct “involved sexual commentary and sexual advances toward seven young women, and sexual contact with two of these young women. … (T)hese young women did not enjoy or desire to be recipients of the behavior” (emphasis added).

The ILG report’s findings are deeply disturbing. They prove that it was definitively in the public interest to investigate serious allegations concerning a sitting school board member with fiduciary responsibility over minor children.

This week’s dismissal by Judge Goldberg does exactly what Judge Eliff’s decision did. In dismissing the defamation case against BLM5280 and Fleming, Goldberg rejected Anderson’s obvious attempt to discredit ILG’s investigation by suing those who precipitated it. Instead, the courts again reinforced the legitimacy of the investigation and its findings.

Only one of Anderson’s claims — for defamation against defendant Jeeva Senthilnathan — can move forward. The judge found that Senthilnathan must prove accusations of sexual assault, which she made in public Facebook posts, because they “assert actual fact” and are “capable of being proven true or false.” The judge accepted that actual malice could be proven and emphasized that, unlike BLM5280 and Fleming, Senthilnathan’s statements were made after the investigation concluded.

In the end, Tay Anderson’s latest attempt to undermine even the idea of looking into the allegations against him and to discredit the DPS investigation has cratered. He will even owe attorneys’ fees.

Maybe now, Denver’s Jesse Smollett will finally stop blaming others for his own misdeeds.

Jimmy Sengenberger is host of “The Jimmy Sengenberger Show” Saturdays from 6-9am on News/Talk 710 KNUS. He also hosts “Jimmy at the Crossroads,” a webshow and podcast in partnership with The Washington Examiner.