Students for Trump co-founder Ryan Fournier, 27, was arrested for assaulting his ex-girlfriend in North Carolina, allegedly striking her on the forehead with a 9 mm Sig Sauer pistol and grabbing her by the arm, according to court records.
Fournier was arrested just ahead of Thanksgiving on Nov. 21, Johnston County District Court records indicate. He was charged with assault on a female and assault with a deadly weapon.
A spokesperson for the Johnston County Sheriff’s Office, Jeff Caldwell, reviewed details of the arrest with Law&Crime by phone Tuesday morning. The arresting officer said he was dispatched to Fournier’s residence in Selma after receiving a call about a domestic dispute there. Caldwell said before the officer arrived at the home, he had “made contact with the caller,” who said Fournier had “hit the female in the head with a gun.”
Once deputies arrived, they made contact with Fournier and he invited the officer inside.
That officer said he heard a “female crying upstairs,” Caldwell said, and he “went upstairs to check on the female where deputies immediately noticed that the girlfriend had about a 1-inch cut on her forehead, blood running down her face.”
The deputy also noted she was “upset and crying,” he added.
The woman, who had her name redacted from magistrate records, then told the deputy that Fournier had her hit on her head with the gun. The scene was then “secured for emergency services” to arrive and tend to her wound.
Fournier founded the right-wing pro-Trump students association in 2016 and now also operates an organization known as Radical Alert. That group, with a sizable following of more than 1 million on X, the company formerly known as Twitter, purports to combat “radicals” that spread “hate” on college campuses, the organization’s website states.
This isn’t Fournier’s first run-in with the law, nor is it the first time a member of Students for Trump has found themselves in perilous legal straits. In May 2021, John Lambert, Fournier’s fellow Students for Trump co-founder, was sentenced to just over a year in prison for pretending to be a lawyer named “Eric Pope.” Lambert, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud in 2019, swindled money from some half-dozen marks, the New York Post reported.
As for Fournier, he was charged with driving while impaired in February 2021 and was arrested for speeding in excess of 100 mph in a 45 mph zone, according to records reviewed that year by The Daily Beast. In the DUI case, Fournier agreed to serve 48 hours of community service and be placed under a year of supervised probation. In exchange, the charges were later dismissed.
Ryan Fournier booking photo, Johnston County Sheriff’s Office
Fournier posted his $2,500 bond the same day of his arrest on the assault charges and waived his right to counsel since he already had one retained, according to court records.
He appears in court next in North Carolina on Dec. 18.
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