Everett mayor wins $1.1M settlement after being subjected to ‘Holocaust’ of lies
The mayor of Everett, mercilessly defamed by a local weekly newspaper that printed a “Holocaust” of lies, has won a landmark $1.1 million settlement that permanently shuts down the rag, the Herald has learned.
Under the terms of the settlement, the Everett Leader Herald is required to cease publication within a week as the city’s Mayor Carlo DeMaria ends his lawsuit against the paper.
A press conference is scheduled for Monday afternoon with the mayor and his attorneys to announce the settlement publicly.
This ends a grueling court battle between DeMaria and a weekly owner and editor who ran with bogus stories about the mayor to promote business interests in a blatant betrayal of the First Amendment.
“This settlement is a major victory for truth … and a complete vindication for myself and my family,” DeMaria said this weekend, adding the weekly “can no longer be used as a weapon to falsely destroy anyone’s reputation.”
DeMaria said he fought for his name, his family, and the city of Everett.
The lawsuit centered on nearly two dozen articles published from 2019 through 2022 in which the Leader Herald asserted that Mayor DeMaria had solicited and accepted kickbacks, including cash kickbacks, that he had committed “extortion,” that he had “stolen” money and had “threatened” people if they did not pay him.
It was all a lie.
“This was as egregious a campaign of deliberate defamation as one could possibly imagine, designed to harm the mayor and his family, and to inflict both reputational and emotional harm on him,” said DeMaria’s attorney Jeffrey Robbins.
DeMaria was represented by a Saul Ewing team comprised of Joe Lipchitz, Paige Schroeder and Robbins who sued Herald Leader owner Matthew Philbin and its publisher/editor, Josh Resnek, in 2021. Philbin could not be reached for a comment on Sunday; Resnek declined to comment.
Resnek admitted in a sworn deposition that the defamatory articles and their accusations were fabricated, the quotes attributed to people about the mayor and by the mayor were also fabricated, and that the “notes” that he produced after the lawsuit was filed as actual reporters’ notes supporting his stories were also fabricated.
In that September deposition, Resnek added that he was “embarrassed” by the lies he printed and “apologized” to the mayor.
A Middlesex county judge later informed Philbin and Resnek to put aside $850,000 “attachment” to personal property and prepare for trial. More details on that are expected at Monday’s press conference. When Resnek was asked Sunday if he was going to lose his house, he said: “I don’t have anything to say at the present time.”
“The result of the settlement — both in terms of the dollar amount that the defendants have agreed to pay and the shutting down of the newspaper through which the defamation took place — reflects just how egregious what the mayor was subjected to was,” Robbins said in a statement.
DeMaria said what his family was forced to endure drove him to fight to clear his name.
“This case has taken a tremendous toll on me and my family. Despite our suffering, my wife and I have maintained our dignity with the knowledge and hope that the truth would finally come out,” the mayor said this weekend. “The facts meant that the result was never really in doubt.”
Resnek’s own texts and email dug up in this case stated the weekly paper was out to administer a “Holocaust” and deliver an “atomic” attack on DeMaria all because Philbin’s business interests in Everett at an insurance company and rooming houses and other properties were in play.
Philbin even blamed the mayor for slumping ad sales in the struggling weekly, records state.
Resnek also admitted he raised thousands of dollars in cash from the mayor’s opponents during DeMaria’s 2021 reelection campaign.
DeMaria remains in office as Everett continues to grow with the Encore casino driving economic activity and the state Legislature recently approving a new soccer stadium in the city that’s slated to host the New England Revolution soccer team owned by the Kraft family. It will be a short hop across the Mystic River from Boston to Everett to catch a game instead of heading to Foxboro.
The past has been “ugly,” DeMaria admitted, but now he can move on.
“What is most important here,” he added, “is that the people of Everett know the truth and understand that they can trust their mayor and have faith in the government of the City of Everett.”
from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/ZGS2gyX
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