Former Employer Suing For Libel On Reddit

Throwaway, of course. IL. Probably fewer than 15 employees.

I saw through USPS informed delivery that a law firm is trying to send me certified mail. I looked up my name in the local court records and saw an active case against me by my former employer for libel/slander asking for damages in excess of $100,000.

Months before, I received a cease and desist letter accusing me of libel as well and telling me to remove any comments/refrain from further comments online.

The comments quoted were not from me so I ignored the letter. I have not received this new letter yet.

This is regarding a video that a customer posted online a few months ago of my former employer/boss seemingly harassing said customer.

It was shared to Reddit in a niche community where my former coworkers found it and truthfully commented accusing my boss of workplace discrimination/bullying customers/illegal practices. If I would guess, the post was probably only seen by a handful of people in the business subreddit. It has since been deleted.

On that reddit thread, I did comment, agreeing with others that she was racist. I posted a handful of short comments just agreeing with others / detailing some actions I witnessed.

After receiving the cease and desist, I did not write any more comments and the video was eventually taken down anyway.

My reddit account is not connected to me in any way. There was nothing identifying in my comments or any previous comments in my account. Furthermore, all of the comments written by me and others are truthful and can probably be backed up by physical evidence but definitely at the very least by witnesses.

In her filing, she included screen shots of comments from two accounts that are not mine. She refers to both accounts as me. So, she's sort of just guessing who wrote what comments. She does, however, include some of my actual comments.

As far as I know, she's only suing me and none of the other former employees who commented. She is also suing the customer who posted the video. She is assuming most of the comments are me because I quit and she apparently never got over it.

Some background: This is a small franchise retail business. The damages she claims are almost definitely in excess of her annual revenue. She does seem to have the financial means to seriously pursue this, however. I quit my job over a year ago after my bosses/the owners retaliated against a girl for reporting sexual harassment/assault, discriminated against other employees based on sex, sexual orientation, and race, and forced us to sell fraudulent products to customers among many other issues. I moved to another franchisee's store. After I left, she repeatedly called my new owners and their businesses to harass them and filed frivolous complaints against them. I then filed a complaint with corporate for harassment and detailed the inappropriate workplace conduct I witnessed when I was employed as well. Nothing came of that. Then, over a year later, that video was posted and old coworkers found it and shared it with me. I anonymously made a few short, honest comments. It is also now past the 300 day mark to file an EEOC complaint even if one was warranted.

So I have some questions...

1. I no longer really live at the address she is attempting to serve and will not be back in time to receive the certified mail. If she fails to serve me even though I'm not actively evading service, what happens? She does not know my current address or employer.
2. How serious is this? Would she really be awarded some default judgement for $100k+ for comments I would argue are not libelous but some of which are not even from me? Damages she definitely did not experience.
3. If I do have to respond, and I cannot afford legal representation, can I simply write my own motion to dismiss or something and simply state those social media accounts are not mine?
4. If she is somehow awarded a default judgment, how likely is she to be able to collect? People are telling me she would not be able to garnish my wages and likely nothing would happen anyway. Is this true?
5. Is this not harassment?? I quit probably two years ago and have not spoken to her since. She tried to get me fired from my last job, tried to get that new employer's franchises taken away, and now she's suing me?? Is it libel to agree with other people online that you witnessed inappropriate conduct that you did in fact witness??