LGBTQ activist and businessman Joshua Patel hosted a community Diwali party on Nov. 9.

Patel organized the event as a community gathering amid the Trump-Vance administration’s policies against LGBTQ inclusion and DEI. The event, held at the Capo Deli speakeasy, drew more than 120 attendees, including local business leaders.

Patel is a franchise owner of ProMD Health, recently awarded as the best med spa by the Washington Blade. He is also a major gift officer at Lambda Legal.

Patel noted that upon moving from New York to Washington in 2022, he desired a chance for community-based Diwali celebrations. He stated that the city offered minimal chances for gatherings beyond religious institutions, unless one was invited to the White House’s Diwali party. 

“With our current administration, that gathering too has ended — where we cannot expect more than Kash Patel and President Trump lighting a ‘diya’ candle on Instagram while simultaneously cutting DEIB funding,” Patel said.

In addition to celebrating the festival of lights and good over evil, Patel saw the event as a moment to showcase “rich, vibrant culture” and “express gratitude.”

Patel coined the celebration a “unifier.”

“From a spiritual angle, Shiva was the world’s first transgender God, taking the form of both “male” and “female” incarnations,” Patel said. “The symbolism of our faith and concepts are universal and allows for all to rejoice in the festivities as much or little as they desire.”

Savor Soiree, DMV Mini Snacks and Capo Deli catered the event. DJ Kush spun music and Elisaz Events decorated the Diwali celebration.

The Diwali party also featured performances by former Miss Maryland Heather Young Schleicher, actor Hariqbal Basi, Patel himself and Salatin Tavakoly and Haseeb Ahsan.

Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C.-based LGBTQ group that organizes the city’s annual Pride events, filed a Civil Complaint on Oct. 27 against local LGBTQ activist and former volunteer Darren Pasha, accusing him of engaging in a year-long effort to harass, intimidate, and stalk Capital Pride’s staff, board members, and volunteers.

The complaint, which was 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 “any further contact, harassment, intimidation, or interference with the Plaintiff, its staff, board members, volunteers, and affiliates.”

According to online court records, on Oct. 28, a judge issued an “initial order” setting the date for a scheduling conference for the case on Feb. 6, 2026. As of the end of the business day on Friday, Nov. 7, the judge did not issue a ruling on Capital Pride’s request for an injunction and restraining order

The court records show that on Nov. 5 Pasha filed an answer to the complaint in which he denies all allegations that he targeted Capital Pride officials or volunteers for stalking or that he engaged in any other improper behavior.

“It is evident that the document is replete with false, misleading, and unsubstantiated assertions,” Pasha says in his response, adding that “no credible or admissible evidence has been provided” to meet the statutory requirements for an anti-stalking order.

The Capital Pride complaint includes an 18-page legal brief outlining its allegations against Pasha and an additional 167-page addendum of “supporting exhibits” that includes multiple statements by witnesses whose names are blacked out in the court filing documents.

“Over the past year, Defendant Darren Dolshad Pasha (“DSP”} has engaged in a sustained and escalating course of conduct directed at CPA, including repeated and unwanted contact, harassment, intimidation, threats, manipulation, and coercive behavior targeting CPA staff, board members, volunteers, and affiliates,” the Capital Pride complaint states.

It continues, “This conduct included physical intimidation, unwanted physical contact, deception to gain unauthorized access to events, retaliatory threats, abusive digital communication, proxy-based harassment, and knowing defiance of organizational bans and protective orders.”

The sweeping anti-stalking order requested in Capital Pride’s court motion would prohibit Pasha from interacting in person or online or electronically with “all current and future staff, board members, and volunteers of Capital Pride Alliance, Inc.”

The proposed order adds, the “defendant shall stay at least 200 yards away from the principal offices of Capital Pride Alliance” and “shall stay at least 200 yards away from all Capital Pride Alliance events, event venues, associated activities, and affiliated gatherings.”

The reason for these restrictions, according to the complaint, is that Pasha’s actions toward Capital Pride staff, board members, and volunteers allegedly reached the level of causing them to fear for their safety, become “alarmed, disturbed, or frightened,” or suffer emotional distress as defined in D.C.’s anti-stalking law.

Among the Capital Pride officials who are identified by name and who have included statements in the complaint in support of its allegations against Pasha are Ashley Smith, the former Capital Pride Alliance board president, and June Crenshaw, the Capital Pride Alliance deputy director.

“I am making this declaration based on my personal knowledge to support CPA’s petition for a Civil Anti-Stalking Order (ASO) against Daren Pasha,” Smith says in his court statement. “My concerns about the respondent are based on my personal interactions with him as well as reports I have received from other members of the CPA community,” Smith states.

The Capital Pride complaint against Pasha and its supporting documents were filed by D.C. attorney Nick Harrison of the local law firm Harrison-Stein PC.

In his 16-page response to the complaint that he says he wrote himself without the aid of an attorney, Pasha says the Capital Pride complaint against him appears to be a form of retaliation against him for a dispute he has had with the organization and its then president, Ashley Smith, over the past year.

His response states that the announcement last month by Capital Pride that Smith resigned from his position as board president on Oct. 18 after it became aware of a “claim” regarding Smith and it had opened an investigation into the claim supports his assertion that Smith’s resignation is linked to his year-long claim that Smith tarnished his reputation.

Among his allegations against Smith in his response to the Capital Pride complaint, Pasha accuses Smith of using his position as a member of the board of the Human Rights Campaign, the D.C.-based national LGBTQ advocacy organization, to persuade HRC to terminate his position as an HRC volunteer and to ban him from attending any future HRC events. He attributes HRC’s action against him to “defamatory” claims about him by Smith related to his ongoing dispute with Smith.

The Capital Pride complaint cites HRC officials as saying Pasha was ousted from his role as a volunteer after he allegedly engaged in abusive and inappropriate behavior  toward HRC staff members and other volunteers.

 Capital Pride has so far declined to disclose the reason for Smith’s resignation pending an internal investigation. 

In its statement announcing Smith’s resignation, a copy of which it sent to the Washington Blade, Capital Pride Alliance says, “Recently, CPA was made aware of a claim made regarding him. The organization has retained an independent firm to initiate an investigation and has taken the necessary steps to make available partner service providers for the parties involved.”

The statement adds, “To protect the integrity of the process and the privacy of all involved, CPA will not be sharing further information at this time.”

Smith did not respond to a request by the Blade for comment, and Capital Pride has declined to disclose whether Smith’s resignation is linked in any way to Pasha’s allegations. 

The Capital Pride complaint seeks to “characterize me as posing a threat sufficient to justify the issuance of a Civil Anti-Stalking Order (CAO), yet no credible or admissible evidence has been provided to satisfy the statutory elements required under D.C. Code 22-3133,” Pasha states in his response.

“CPA’s assertions fail to establish any such conduct on my part and instead appear calculated to discredit and retaliate against me for raising legitimate concerns regarding the conduct of its former Board President,” he states in his response.

In its complaint against Pasha and its legal memorandum supporting its request for an anti-stalking order, Capital Pride provides a list of D.C. Superior Court records that show Pasha has been hit with several anti-stalking orders in cases unrelated to Capital Pride in the past and has violated those orders, resulting in his arrest in at least two of those cases.

“A fundamental justification for granting the [Anti-Stalking Order] lies in the Respondent’s extensive and recent criminal history demonstrating a proven propensity for defying judicial protective measures,” the complaint states. “This history suggests that organizational bans alone are insufficient to deter his behavior, elevating the current situation to one requiring mandatory judicial enforcement,” it says.

“It is alleged that in or about June 2025, Defendant was convicted on multiple counts of violating existing Anti-Stalking Orders in matters unrelated to Capital Pride Alliance (“CPA”),with consecutive sentences imposed, purportedly establishing a pattern of contempt for judicial restraint,” Pasha states in his court response to the Capital Pride complaint.

“These allegations are irrelevant to the matter currently before the Court,” his response continues. “The events cited are entirely unrelated to CPA and the allegations underlying the petition for a Civil Anti-Stalking Order. 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 adds in his response, “Any reliance on such prior matters is misleading, prejudicial, and legally insufficient.”

A jury with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday, Nov. 6, found D.C. resident Sean Charles Dunn not guilty of assault for tossing a hero sandwich into the chest of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent at the intersection of 14^th and U streets, N.W. at around 11 p.m. on Aug. 10. 

Dunn’s attorneys hailed the verdict as a gesture of support for Dunn’s contention that his action, which was captured on video that went viral on social media, was an exercise of his First Amendment right to protest the federal border agent’s participating in President Donald Trump’s deployment of federal troops on D.C. streets. 

Friends of Dunn have said that shortly before the sandwich tossing incident took place Dunn had been at the nearby gay nightclub Bunker, which was hosting a Latin dance party called Tropicoqueta. Sabrina Shroff, one of three attorneys representing Dunn at the trial, said during the trial after Dunn left the nightclub he went to the submarine sandwich shop on 14^th Street at the corner of U Street, where he saw the border patrol agent and other law enforcement officers  standing in front of the shop.

 Shroff and others who know Dunn have said he was fearful that the border agent outside the sub shop and immigrant agents might raid the Bunker Latin night event. Bunker’s entrance is on U Street just around the corner from the sub shop where the federal agents were standing.

 “I am so happy that justice prevails in spite of everything happening,“ Dunn told reporters outside the courthouse after the verdict while joined by his attorneys. “And that night I believed that I was protecting the rights of immigrants,” he said.

 “And let us not forget that the great seal of the United States says, E Pluribus Unum,” he continued. “That means from many, one. Every life matters no matter where you came from, no matter how you got here, no matter how you identify, you have the right to live a life that is free.”

The verdict followed a two-day trial with testimony by just two witnesses, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent Gregory Lairmore, who identified Dunn as the person who threw the sandwich at his chest, and Metro Transit Police Detective Daina Henry, who told the jury she witnessed Dunn toss the sandwich at Lairmore while shouting obscenities.

Shroff told the jury Dunn was exercising his First Amendment right to protest and that the tossing of the sandwich at Lairmore, who was wearing a bulletproof vest, did not constitute an assault under the federal assault law to which Dunn was charged, among other things, because the federal agent was not injured. 

Prosecutors  with the Office of the U.S. Attorney for D.C. initially attempted to obtain a grand jury indictment of Dunn on a felony assault charge. But the grand jury refused to hand down an indictment on that charge, court records show. Prosecutors then filed a criminal complaint against Dunn on the misdemeanor charge of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers of the United States.

“Dunn stood within inches of Victim 1,” the criminal complaint states, “pointing his finger in Victim 1’s face, and yelled, Fuck you! You fucking fascists! Why are you here? I don’t want you in my city!”

The complaint continues by stating, “An Instagram video recorded by an observer captured the incident. The video depicts Dunn screaming at V-1 within inches of his face for several seconds before winding his arm back and forcefully throwing a sub-style sandwich at V-1. 

Prosecutors repeatedly played the video of the incident for the jurors on video screens in the courtroom. 

Dunn, who chose not to testify at his trial, and his attorneys have not disputed the obvious evidence that Dunn threw the sandwich that hit Lairmore in the chest. Lead defense attorney Shroff and co-defense attorneys Julia Gatto and Nicholas Silverman argued that Dunn’s action did not constitute an assault under the legal definition of common law assault in the federal assault statute.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael DiLorenzo, the lead prosecutor in the case, strongly disputed that claim, citing various  provisions in the law and appeals court rulings that he claimed upheld his and the government’s contention that an “assault” can take place even if a victim is not injured as well as if there was no physical contact between the victim and an alleged assailant, only a threat of physical contact and injury.

The dispute over the intricacies of  the assault law and whether Dunn’s action reached the level of an assault under the law dominated the two-day trial, with U.S. District Court Judge Carl J. Nichols, who presided over the trial, weighing in with his own interpretation of the assault statute. Among other things, he said it would be up to the jury to decide whether or not Dunn committed an assault.

Court observers have said in cases like this, a jury could have issued a so-called  “nullification” verdict in which they acquit a defendant even though they believe he or she committed the offense in question because they believe the charge is unjust. The other possibility, observers say, is the jury believed the defense was right in claiming a law was not violated.

DiLorenzo and his two co-prosecutors in the case declined to comment in response to requests by reporters following the verdict.

“We really want to thank the jury for having sent back an affirmation that his sentiment is not just tolerated but it is legal, it is welcome,” defense attorney Shroff said in referring to Dunn’s actions. “And we thank them very much for that verdict,” she said.

Dunn thanked his attorneys for providing what he called excellent representation “and for offering all of their services pro bono,” meaning free of charge.

Dunn, an Air Force veteran who later worked as an international affairs specialist at the U.S. Department of Justice, was fired from that job by DOJ officials after his arrest for the sandwich tossing incident. 

“I would like to thank family and friends and strangers for all of their support, whether it  was emotional, or spiritual, or artistic, or financial,” he told the gathering outside the courthouse. “To the people that opened their hearts and homes to me, I am eternally grateful.” 

“As always, we accept a jury’s verdict; that is the system within which we function,” CNN quoted U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro as saying after the verdict in the Dunn case. “However, law enforcement should never be subjected to assault, no matter how ‘minor,’” Pirro told CNN in a statement.

“Even children know when they are angry, they are not allowed to throw objects at one another,” CNN quoted her as saying.