A Victory Over Journalistic Dishonesty

Mayor DeMaria clears name and wins $1.1 million settlement that puts Everett Leader Herald out of business 

By Mark E. Vogler

The owner and publisher/editor of the now-defunct Everett Leader Herald paid the ultimate price for knowingly publishing a series of fake news stories in an organized campaign to discredit and publicly humiliate Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria. It cost them $1.1 million in damages and the life of the weekly newspaper, which was first established in 1885.

Those were the key components of a settlement agreed to by Leader Herald Owner Matthew Philbin and Publisher/Editor Joshua Resnek. That was an expensive option, but one they preferred over going to trial next month in Middlesex Superior Court to defend themselves in the defamation lawsuit filed by the mayor back in 2021.

“This is a rare amount [damages] and a very high amount to be awarded in a case like this,” Boston Attorney Jeffrey Robbins, a Partner at Saul Ewing LLP, told The Everett Advocate in an interview this week.

“I’m not aware of a politician who has ever received an award in a defamation case that comes close to this. Nothing remotely close,” Robbins said.

Robbins and Saul Ewing Attorneys Joseph Lipchitz and Paige Schroeder represented Mayor DeMaria in his lawsuit against the Leader Herald, its owner and its publisher/editor.

Owner Philibin could not be reached for comment. Publisher/Editor Resnek did not return a telephone call left on his answering machine.

In his interview with The Everett Advocate, Robbins called the case “the most egregious example of professional misconduct and dishonesty by a newspaper” that he can recall during his 42 years of practicing law.

“The American citizen has a very low view of the media right now,” Robbins said.

“And this is the kind of set of facts that feeds right into that,” he said.

Mayor agrees to drop lawsuit

Robbins and Mayor DeMaria announced the settlement of his lawsuit during a press conference held Monday in the Boston office of Saul Ewing LLP. Court documents related to the settlement remained confidential. But Robbins met with reporters to explain how that settlement was reached.

“The size of the payment by the defendants to Mayor DeMaria and their shutting down of the newspaper speaks volumes about the egregiousness of the defendants’ conduct, which the paper’s publisher and editor has already admitted constituted actionable defamation,” Robbins said in a statement to reporters on Monday.

“Today marks the end of a very unfortunate process, one which should never have been necessary, and never would have been necessary but for the decision of the owner of the Everett Leader Herald and its publisher/editor to embark on what, the evidence on the public record showed, was a purposeful, deliberate and egregiously dishonest campaign to use that paper and its storied heritage to ruin one person’s reputation,” Robbins said.

In return for the defendants’ payment and agreement to close their newspaper, Mayor DeMaria agreed not to go forward with a trial of his defamation case that was scheduled to begin on Jan. 21 in Middlesex Superior Court.

Mayor DeMaria noted that the defendants tarnished the newspaper, once a respected news source under previous ownership, with their egregious and nefarious misconduct. “What the evidence demonstrated is that upon purchasing the Everett Leader Herald in 2017, a paper with a long and storied history in our city, these defendants embarked on a deliberate, purposeful, relentless campaign to publish accusations against me that they knew were false, that they knew were fabricated, that they knew had no basis, that they knew would damage my reputation and inflict severe damage not only on me but on my family, and that they specifically hoped and intended would drive me out of office, or worse,” Mayor DeMaria said.

“The size and scope of this settlement, both in terms of the amount that the defendants have agreed to pay and, in their agreement, to shut down their newspaper, is a reflection of just how egregious their conduct was, and of the volume of their admissions of their misconduct, misconduct that gives journalism and journalists a bad name,” the mayor said.

“I’m unaware of any instance in which a media outlet was purchased for the purpose of destroying someone’s reputation, but that is precisely what happened here,” he said.

DeMaria has been Everett’s mayor since January of 2008.

Attorney lauds Everett Advocate’s coverage

Attorney Robbins credited the ongoing and comprehensive coverage by The Everett Advocate of DeMaria’s lawsuit for “shedding public light on the situation.” “The Advocate played a courageous and crucial role in exposing what had occurred. And it was a crucial counterpart to the Leader Herald,” Robbins said in his interview.

The Leader Herald published its final newspaper on Wednesday (Dec. 18). As part of the agreement, the newspaper had to terminate all contracts with its vendors and distributors. It also had to take down its social media page and run a notice in the newspaper telling readers that it had published its last edition, according to Robbins.

Had the owner and publisher/editor of the Leader Herald decided to go to trial, a jury would have decided what to award in defamation damages, the attorney said. “All a jury would have decided to do in this case would be to decide whether to award damages and how much in damages,” Robbins said.

“But a jury could not have ordered a newspaper to close down. That was one of the things that made the settlement unusual,” he said.

The Leader Herald published about two dozen fabricated news stories disparaging the mayor over a period of 2019 through 2022, according to court documents. The articles accused DeMaria of soliciting and accepting kickbacks, stealing money and other acts of political corruption – allegations that Resnek later admitted were fabricated.

Robbins noted that the newspaper’s motive for attacking DeMaria through fabricated stories appeared to be motivated out of Philbin’s belief “that mayor had been unfavorable in his dealings with his business interests,” Robbins said.

Philibin owns an insurance company, rooming houses and several other properties. “There was evidence on the reason [for the fake articles attacking the mayor],” Robbins said.

“That was what the mission was. That’s what the goal was. Texts and emails mentioned that,” the attorney said.

“You don’t have one smoking gun. You have an arsenal of smoking guns. A whole ammunition depot,” he said.

During the barrage of repeated stories that publicly castigated the mayor as a corrupt politician, Robbins said, it was clear that the mayor, his wife, his children and elderly parents endured great public humiliation. “The mayor displayed a lot of emotion over how the stories affected him and his family,” Robbins said.

“Here’s a story that tells how this took a personal toll on him. His father told him, ‘If what I’m reading in the paper [the Leader Herald] are true, you’re not my son,’” the attorney said.