Fabrications, lies and depravity, etc. The Leader Herald Publisher in his own words

Carlo DeMaria, Jr. vs. Everett Leader Herald, Sergio Cornelio, Joshua Resnek, Matthew Philbin and Andrew Philbin, Sr.

By James Mitchell

It’s not who you know

Despite his relationships with well-known publishers, journalists and sculptors, the Everett Leader Herald’s publisher/reporter/editor Josh Resnek just can’t help himself. The shameless self-promoter and wordsmith that he believes he is, claiming to be inspired by such literary masters from Tolstoy to Kerouac, is being crushed by his own words thanks to his emails turned over as evidence during his fourth videotaped deposition on Sept. 1 at the Boston law offices. Resnek’s own ego would reveal himself to be nothing more than a snake oil salesman who brags about alleged money laundering and bragging about violating women.

In his May 5, 2021, email leading up to the primary, Resnek boasts to former Tab newspaper founder Russel Pergament about how he will run Mayor Carlo DeMaria out of office. In the email, marked Exhibit 49, Resnek describes his day to Pergament, saying how he will meet “a friend of one of the two people running against the mayor” at the Sunrise Café on Main Street for breakfast, to pick up $2,000 in cash.

Resnek writes, “I will treat him to breakfast and he will invite me out to his car (Mercedes). He will open the trunk and point and I will reach into the trunk and taker [sic] a very beautiful ‘package,’ a thick almost heavy envelope licked shut with $2,000 in $20 dollar bills stacked neatly inside. A very nice morning, I will do this every week until the September primary to aid his man in winning.”

In his reply, Pergament warns Resnek: “As to your funding, I’d be inclined to declare it as income to save yourself any bullshit down the road or – raise the question of their reporting campaign dispersements, so I step aside let you figure it all out.”

In an April 29, 2021, email to Pergament about his latest edition attacking the mayor, Resnek describes his funding for his door-to-door distribution thanks to a Capone supporter. “I get an extra $1600 bucks from a Capone ally twice a month to distribute the paper all over the city. I am picking up the c-notes this morning in Everett,” states Resnek. But during testimony, Resnek claimed that the events never happened, blaming it all on hyperbole – calling it total fabrication.

Resnek was then asked by the mayor’s attorney Jeffrey Robbins about an email describing former councillor and mayoral challenger Fred Capone bragging to Pergament that Capone had put up $20,000 for Resnek to deliver the newspapers door to door two weeks until the primary. Resnek claimed it never happened although he and Capone discussed certain things about how much he could spend. “His campaign would pay to do that. It never happened,” stated Resnek. When pressed by Robbins about the true nature of his discussion with the candidate, Resnek stated that he needed $17,000 to continue publishing the paper.

In a July 21, 2021, email, Resnek waxes poetic with Pergament, who appears to be infatuated with the latest Leader-Herald editions about the mayor, telling him that he’s challenging the climate with his reporting. Ironically, Resnek replies, “climate change is difficult.”

Resnek then offers Pergament a glimpse of his life as the most dazzling newspaper reporter in the world describing his attendance at a Capone campaign fundraiser in Malden – believing he would be sorely disappointed at the turnout but describes the possible payoff by his attendance. “The crowd proved his candidacy is real. He [Capone] also raised about $25,000. While I was there, I did some Pergament style ass kissing in the room with two of the wealthiest men in Everett and got $5,000 commitments from each of them for the next six weeks. I’ve got some bombs coming, one a week for about four weeks and ending with an atomic bomb. This takes a lot of my time and energy at a time when I’d rather be free to do exactly as I like – but what the f#@k – what else am I going to do with my life? A lot! This effort is after all fun and easy. Takes me two days to get the paper ready and then three hours to deliver it 10,000 times with my delivery crew. Voila! As my mentor Mr. [Andrew] Quigley used to say to me: ‘It is idiot’s work, Josh. And you’re thoroughly qualified!’”

But Resnek takes his ego to the next level in an April 22, 2021, email, after Pergament questions Capone’s chances against the mayor. Resnek goes to work, telling his electronic pen pal that Capone has plenty of money, that Capone and his wife are “lifelong Italian people.”

“He just put up $20,000 for me to deliver the paper door to door every two weeks until the primary,” states Resnek. “The other guy can’t beat my messaging citywide. Better yet, I believe the Black woman will be running. I think she can win! With both of them running into a September primary, the mayor gets bounced. He can’t survive a two front war with me as the battlefield general.”

As is Resnek’s track record, he couldn’t have been more wrong post primary day. During the Sept. 1 deposition, Resnek denied taking any money from anyone – that if he did take in any cash, he would report it to his employer to deposit into the newspaper’s Rockland Trust bank account.

Resnek admitted to approaching the two challengers in the mayoral race for advertising money as well as approaching about 30 supporters of the candidates in 2021 in his depositions. When asked for some names of the supporters, Resnek stated he couldn’t recall a single one – as if he was being grilled by a detective. “I’m asking you under oath, said Atty. Robbins, “is it your testimony you can’t recall a single individual that you approached for funding in 2021 in the last 10 weeks before the primary?

“For advertising? asked Resnek. “Yes,” replied the attorney. “For advertising revenues? Yes,” says Resnek.

In another revealing email to his employer, Matthew Philbin, Resnek sends a proposal marked “For Internal Use Only – Seven Weeks Until the Primary.” Resnek describes a budget needed to print and deliver 10,700 newspapers door to door from August 4 through September 15, for a total of $15,500 at $1,200 per week. Resnek tells Philbin in the email to expect revenue to Dorchester Publications, LLC, $16,000 from Mr. A and Mr. B for $5,000 each; and Mr. C for $6,000.

In his explanation, Resnek states that the “three payments to us will pay almost entirely for all our printing and distribution costs for the 7 weeks.”

He then describes putting together “atomic bombs” about the mayor to be published every week beginning in August leading up to the Sept. 15 edition with an insert, writing a 3,000-5,000 word “Looking at Carlo DeMaria” written in “Resnek style.”

“It will be a tell all,” writes Resnek. “One big blast seven days before the primary. He can’t and won’t answer it.”

But the most disturbing evidence to appear during the deposition was an email thread between Resnek and his sculptor pal, Douglas Abdell. Resnek – who admitted to writing libelous stories in his Blue Suit columns falsely accusing the mayor of sexual assault – takes pleasure in describing his relationship with women harking back to Chelsea in 1980 in appalling detail. In an email dated Sat., April 17, 2021, Resnek replies to Abdell:

“As to the story about that hot woman in Florence…and what might have been, l take you to 1980 Chelsea, where Arnie (Jarmak) and I are trying to f#@k every woman in the city as our ambition. This was when we owned the bar, the Beacon Cafe and turned it into the hottest spot in the decadent city. Arnie met a woman who repaired typewriters who he invited to the Chelsea Record to keep our typewriters in shape. Her name was Carol (last name redacted). In quick succession we both f#@ked her. Arnie f@#ked her in his apartment on the lower end of Broadway. When she was finished she came down stairs and she f@#ked me. It was wonderful. She f@#ked like an animal. The moment she was penetrated she grunted and threw her head back. Then she’d rock back and forth on the bed until she erupted – and then she’d collapse into a shambles of a woman satiated for that moment. She’d put her clothes back on and that was it. This went on for quite some time. During this time, Arnie and I began f#@king her sister, Elaine, who stayed with friends in Winthrop in an oceanfront home. There were days when Amie and I f@#ked both of them and then partied at night, f@#king other women, and then we both had girlfriends. For a long while, we were f@#king three to four women a day – not every day, mind you – but a lot. My high point was four in one day, my girlfriend, the two sisters and a friend of the sisters who came in from Albany. Anyway…Carol the typewriter girl came up pregnant. She informed Amie and I of this. Of course we kept f@#king her almost daily until she had to do something as she didn’t want her boyfriend who she was living with to find out. We all decided – Carol, Arnie and l to pay one third each, which is to say, Amie and I paid for 2/3 of her abortion.

1. I’ll leave you with that for now. The things Arnie and I did with women would all be considered sex crimes today or at the very least civil rights violations. We never ever f@#ked a woman who didn’t want to copulate. EVER. Who’d believe us!”

But Resnek’s morals couldn’t sink any lower when he attempted and failed to pass along a manuscript about the Wynn Casino land deal, writing fictitiously about the mayor and his wife.

Resnek also met with billionaire developer Joseph O’Donnell, claiming to take meetings with the former Everett resident in an attempt to help him with his lawsuit he filed on behalf of Suffolk Downs against Steve Wynn and the Mass. Gaming Commission over the awarding of the Class A license to Wynn Resorts. O’Donnell was part of the group backing Mohegan Sun at Suffolk Downs, which claimed irregularities over the sale of the Everett land to Wynn.

Resnek, in a May 4, 2019 email to Pergament about his relationship with O’Donnell, states, “I owe him my life – and I do some work for him.” He states in the email that O’Donnell is his “billionaire buddy from Everett” who got his kid into Harvard and is helping him and a friend get their book sold.

Resnek must have been a big help as the Gaming Commission sided with Wynn.

Next week: Resnek twists in the wind.