Attorneys question Leader Herald publisher Resnek in defamation lawsuit

Asked for proof mayor had taken kickbacks – Resnek: “No, I don’t”

  On June 3, attorneys for Mayor Carlo DeMaria’s defamation lawsuit began questioning Everett Leader Heraldnewspaper publisher/reporter Joshua Resnek in a videotape deposition at the Boston law offices of Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr LLP.

  During questioning, Attorney Jeff Robbins established a timeline of Resnek’s employment status and financial woes, which suddenly disappeared just months prior to his new job as publisher of the Everett Leader Herald. According to the deposition, Resnek stated that he and his wife, Carolyn Resnek, had filed for bankruptcy protection on two occasions, in 2001 and again in 2017, due to Internal Revenue Service and Massachusetts Department of Revenue liens, judgments by creditors and attachments to property. Resnek described his financial state as, at one time, broke and sleeping out of his car after losing millions of dollars in personal wealth and real estate holdings due to the recession.

  Resnek and his wife signed a voluntary petition for bankruptcy protection on April 18, 2017. Resnek was then shown a signed document showing that he and his wife were discharged from bankruptcy on Sept. 26, 2017.

  Two months later, on November 29, 2017, Resnek would file as manager for Dorchester Publications LLC with the Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth Corporations division, leaving off the owner’s name, Matthew Philbin. Resnek stated that he wasn’t told to fill that part of the document in – but admitted that his “partner” Matthew Philbin was the owner of the newspaper. Resnek claimed that he wasn’t an employee of Dorchester Publications LLC, had no written agreement – just an oral one – receiving a 1099 IRS form from Philbin. When asked if he reached this oral understanding with Philbin before or after he was discharged from bankruptcy, Resnek said he didn’t remember.

  In the most disturbing testimony given by Resnek, he was asked about the derogatory name he gave the mayor in his many articles and editorials, “Kickback Carlo.” “You’ve called him “kickback Carlo, correct?” asked Robbins. “Yes,” replied Resnek.

  “Do you have any evidence that he’s ever taken a kickback?” asked the attorney. “Do I have any evidence that he’s taken a kickback?” replied, Resnek, adding. “No, I don’t.”

  Resnek was asked about the financial situation beginning when he started working at the Leader Herald, stating that in the first year the paper made money, but it had continued to lose money annually to the tune of approximately $25,000 per year since 2018. When asked if the newspaper was totally dependent on advertising revenue, Resnek stated, “Not exactly. It’s dependent upon Mr. Philbin’s desire to keep the paper going.”

  Resnek testified that he hadn’t been employed since 2012 when he was forced out of the Independent Newspaper Group, owners of the Everett Independent, for breaching fiduciary duty to the owners after taking $250,000 from Vector Media, a vendor of solar powered barrels for the City of Boston in a deal he claimed to help broker for his son’s company. According to the deposition, Resnek had taken the money without informing his partners in the Group. Stephen Quigley, 75% majority owner, discovered emails on Resnek’s work computer of the deal. The Independent Newspaper Group publishes four newspapers in Boston, and Quigley felt that Resnek’ side deal impugned the integrity of the Group.

  Resnek – who had what he claimed was 10-15% ownership of the newspaper group along with four others and worked there from 1999 to 2012 – was, once again, out of a job over what he claimed was a “strong difference of opinion.”

  Resnek was then asked about a company called Chelsea Press LLC, which he stated was a checking account and that it never published a newspaper but did a lot of printing business from 2018 to 2020. When asked how much he earned over the last five years from the Chelsea Press, Resnek stated that Dorchester Press (Philbin) issues a weekly check to him made out to the Chelsea Press LLC. “So the way you work out your arrangement with Mr. Philbin is he doesn’t pay you. He writes a check not to you but to Chelsea Press LLC, and you deposit it in that account and you make expenditures for your personal expenses through that account?” asked Robbins.

  “Yes,” replied Resnek.

  Resnek said he worked briefly for the Boston Herald and has had a longstanding relationship with The Boston Globe, saying that at one time he was an investigative reporter, but he admitted he was just a freelancer and hadn’t been paid by The Globe in 10 years. He also admitted to being fired by Regan Communications, a prominent Boston media company, after only three months on the job, denying the allegation of inappropriate behavior, a sexual harassment issue.

  The questioning moved on to Resnek’s LinkedIn profile and the Everett Leader Herald website, which contains a biography written by Resnek. The attorney asked him why he still represented himself in the LinkedIn bio as an employee and a partner of Independent Newspaper Group LLC when he hadn’t been for 10 years. He was also asked about being president of Chelsea Press LLC, which he claimed was only a checking account and never published any newspapers. “Well, Chelsea Press LLC is Joshua Resnek,” replied Resnek.

  He also states in his LinkedIn bio that he is president of “Globex services and Solutions/Chelsea Press LLC” – Globex is a company owned by his son which has an arrangement with a City of Boston vendor – which Resnek claimed was in title only and without compensation. The attorney asked him about a description of Globex which stated the company was “experts at Print, Digital and OOH Advertising Campaigns – with a Nationwide Reach.” When asked if he was an expert in the mediums described in the bio, Resnek stated he was in print and an “almost expert” in digital – but said he didn’t know what an OOH advertising campaign was.

  Robbins then asked Resnek if he was the owner of Dorchester Publications/Chelsea Press LLC as he stated on the bio; Resnek replied that he was owner and publisher of Chelsea Press only and only editor and publisher of Dorchester Publications.

  The questioning turned to the Everett Leader Herald website bio, which he admitted he wrote.

  Asked about a publication called Casino Boston, a casino-oriented publication that was in publication from 2016 to 2017, Resnek stated that he should have removed that from the bio as it hadn’t been published in five years. Despite his claim to have “almost expertise” in digital, Resnek stated he placed it but didn’t know how to remove it. “I posted it – I posted it years ago,” he said to the attorney.

  The attorney then circled back to Chelsea Press LLC, which – as stated on Resnek’s LinkedIn profile – he was owner of since May of 2000. But Resnek stated he founded the company in 1997 but admitted that he did write on his bio the May 2000 date. But the attorney pointed out that Resnek filed with the Secretary of State on behalf of Chelsea Press LLC on or about August of 2016.

  When asked why he refiled for a company that was no longer in operation, Resnek stated that it ceased to exist for a while after he went bankrupt several times so he felt he needed to start it back up. “You think you had to file a new LLC to create it?” asked Robbins.

  “Yes,” replied Resnek, “I just did it myself.”

  “Then why didn’t you list the owner,” asked Robbins. “You didn’t think there was anything dishonest or nefarious or corrupt about filing an LLC document which didn’t disclose the owner, did you?”

  “That’s correct,” said Resnek.

  Robbins showed Resnek a document from the Massachusetts Secretary of State’s Office showing that Chelsea Press LLC was involuntarily dissolved by a court on June 28, 2019, which Resnek claimed he was unaware of until that moment. “So the first you’ve ever heard that the LLC that you say you’re still the owner of was involuntarily dissolved three years ago is right now. Is that what you’re saying?” asked Robbins.

  “Yes,” said Resnek.

  Questioning moved on to the journalists whom Resnek frequently sent his articles or links to; he stated the recipients were Boston Globe reporters Stephanie Ebbert, Andrea Estes and Steve Kurkjian. Resnek stated he spoke or emailed Ebbert and Estes about DeMaria because The Globe has an interest in municipal corruption. “Did you try to get Stephanie Ebbert and Andrea Estes to, quote, as you put it, ‘do stuff’ for you, correct?” asked Robbins.

  Resnek replied that he wanted The Globe reporters to “make their own judgments about its newsworthiness.”

  Resnek claimed he didn’t send them articles – just information – but then corrected himself by saying he did send them articles. Resnek then admitted that he posted the articles that were the subject of the lawsuit online knowing that the mayor has a family, a wife, three children and elderly parents. Resnek was asked if he knew the impact of what the stories he wrote about the mayor would have on his family; Resnek claimed he was a humanist and a writer and wasn’t out to destroy somebody’s family.

  The questioning turned to a June 2018 editorial that Resnek wrote claiming that the mayor was hurting the Leader Herald’s bottom line in advertising revenue, complaining that DeMaria wasn’t giving a penny in city ads to the newspaper that was criticizing him on nearly a weekly basis. “Can we agree that you’ve been angry at the mayor because you held him responsible for advertising revenue not coming into the coffers of the paper?” asked the attorney.

  “That’s a valid statement,” replied Resnek.

  Resnek further claimed that the mayor forced a major advertiser from advertising with the Leader Herald but refused to reveal the name of the advertiser or any other advertiser.

  The Leader Herald reporter was asked for his definition of extortion, Resnek replied that it is when “one thing is withheld from someone else to give someone else an advantage.”

  When asked if he knew if stealing was a crime, Resnek replied, “I would not consider stealing in some respects a crime.”

  When asked if he knew extortion was a crime, Resnek replied, “I would say, in some respects, that the use of the word ‘extortion’ to connote the interaction between people is not a crime.”

  Resnek was then asked to look at the article he wrote in which he stated, “We won’t be intimidated or extorted here by the mayor” – “you were saying he was trying to extort you, correct?” – to which Resnek dismissively replied, “Water off a duck’s tail,” claiming that it wasn’t his words and that he wasn’t prosecuting the mayor.

  The attorneys then delved into a Sept. 6, 2021, redacted email thread between Resnek and Philbin where Philbin complained that the Everett Co-Operative Bank had stopped advertising and blamed the mayor. Resnek was then asked if he contacted anyone at the bank to find out why the ad was pulled; he stated he did not. “Did you make any effort, sir, to ascertain from anybody at the Everett Cooperative Bank whether or not Mr. DeMaria had intervened to get the bank to not provide money to your newspaper?”

  “I did not,” replied Resnek.

  He was then asked why he stated in the email thread that the Everett Co-Operative Bank was not advertising in the Leader Herald because the bank was somehow connected to the city putting money in the bank interest free. Resnek replied that’s what he believed to be true.

  Resnek was then asked if he spoke to anybody at the bank or City Hall about if the allegation was true. “Did you ask to look at any public records reflecting the holdings of city money in various banks to see what the interest rate was?” asked Robbins.

  “No, I didn’t,” replied Resnek.

  Resnek was then shown a list of financial institutions, all public record, in which the City of Everett has money deposited: 10 accounts, all showing interest that is paid. “Did you do any investigation to ascertain whether or not there was a single account at Everett Cooperative Bank where city money was held which was interest free?” asked Robbins. Resnek claimed he was told by a variety of sources – sources which he refused to name.

  Resnek gave another deposition on Thursday and is scheduled for another at a later date.

“Do you have any evidence that he’s (mayor) ever taken a kickback?” asked the attorney. “Do I have any evidence that he’s taken a kickback?” replied, Resnek, adding. “No, I don’t.” – Attorney questioning Josh Resnek in Carlo DeMaria, Jr. Defamation Lawsuit vs Leader-Herald, Matthew Philbin and Andrew Philbin, Sr.