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Fact or fiction, Resnek and Philbin never cared; the mission was to destroy the mayor at any cost
No facts – just fiction
In his third week of video testimony, on June 30, Leader Herald writer and manager Josh Resnek continued to provide admissions that he fabricated his stories to suit his boss, Matthew Philbin, the owner of the Everett Leader Herald, for the sole purpose of ruining Mayor Carlo DeMaria and his chances for reelection. At the heart of DeMaria’s lawsuit are two editions printed in Sept. 2021, including editorials and “The Blue Suit” columns, which claimed the mayor was breaking the law despite having no evidence to back up their printed allegations. During the deposition, when asked to produce notes or documents as a journalist would, Resnek could only hold up the printed editions of the newspaper as his “notes.”
Resnek was asked about his statement made in an article where he claims someone told him that the payment of $86,000 from the Corey Street property deal, a legitimate real estate deal between DeMaria and Sergio Cornelio, could “draw the attention of the US Attorney’s Office and/or Middlesex County prosecutors.” Resnek admitted that it was a former local attorney, Joseph Marchese, brother of current Councillor-at-Large Michael Marchese, who made the statement. Resnek stated he didn’t have any notes to prove it but agreed that he never disclosed to the readers that Marchese, the person who made the statement, was an “arch enemy” of the mayor.
When asked if there was any reason a prosecutor would take issue with the mayor’s involvement in the real estate deal, Resnek replied that one would due to the mayor’s lack of transparency. Yet, when he was asked why he failed to mention Philbin as the owner of the Everett Leader Herald when he filed the LLC with the state, Resnek said he didn’t have to, claiming he and Philbin were not elected officials.
“Can you think of some law that was broken because Mr. DeMaria is not identified in the LLC as an owner?” asked Attorney Jeffrey Robbins. “No,” replied Resnek.
Robbins asked Resnek what crime the mayor could have committed with respect to the Corey Street deal. Resnek stated that he was told by Cornelio that the mayor used coercion, retaliation and discrimination – and his power over a lesser person who said that he was broke. Resnek also claimed that DeMaria used pressure when Cornelio had a bleeding ulcer and was sick over the threat of losing his job. Robbins asked the investigative reporter if he had any notes that Cornelio had made any of those claims; once again, he replied that he didn’t.
“Isn’t it you who in writing urged Andrea Estes of The Globe to use pressure to extract statements from Mr. Cornelio, somebody who in writing you said you knew suffered from depression and anxiety? Isn’t that you who did that?” asked Robbins. “Yes,” replied Resnek.
A notebook without notes
When asked why he didn’t take notes when interviewing Cornelio or Philbin, Resnek stated that he “didn’t have to.”
“Is there any place that I could actually find evidence that these precise quotes were said by Mr. Cornelio to anybody?” asked Robbins. “No,” stated Resnek.
Once again, Resnek’s notes returned to the conversation when the attorney asked him when he took notes on the day he claimed he spoke to Cornelio briefly at the City Clerk’s Office at City Hall, and the statements made about the mayor and the Corey Street deal. Resnek previously testified under oath that he didn’t want to use his notebook he carried around in his back pocket while delivering the newspapers that day because he didn’t want to intimidate Cornelio, so he made some notes after he left the office. Resnek now claimed that he made notes from that short interview with Cornelio in the notebook after he left City Hall, but when asked for the notes of the interview, Resnek stated he didn’t have them. He then stated that some of the notes from the interview were in the notebook and also on his computer.
Robbins took exception to Resnek’s answers because he had earlier testified under oath that he made his notes in the notebook in question after the articles were published and after he was sued. “Was that what your sworn testimony was?” asked Robbins. “Yes,” replied Resnek.
Refresh my memory
Robbins reminded Resnek of the testimony he made the week before when he described how he had a notebook in his back pocket and was carrying newspapers when he went to the City Clerk’s Office and after speaking to Cornelio, he claimed, he went outside and wrote down some notes. “You went outside and made some notes about the conversation you just had, right?” asked Robbins, asking Resnek about his testimony. “Yes,” he said.
“But that’s not true, is it?” asked the attorney. “No, it isn’t,” said Resnek.
Robbins continued his questioning, asking Resnek about his previous answers relating to the Cornelio conversation, claiming he didn’t take notes because “he didn’t have to.” And when he was reminded of his answer, Resnek then claimed he had taken notes but didn’t know their whereabouts. And when asked again where the notes were, Resnek pointed to the notebook, stating, “They’re in here.”
Robbins then asked him if the statement he made claiming to taking notes after he left Cornelio’s office was false; Resnek admitted to providing inaccurate sworn testimony.
When asked if he intentionally didn’t take notes of the conversation with Cornelio “because he didn’t have to,” Resnek then changed his answer, saying it wasn’t true and then pointed to the Sept. 8 Leader Herald newspaper article.
When Robbins read the quotes in the article attributed to Cornelio about the Corey Street deal that claims the mayor “wanted a piece of the action” or that he (Cornelio) claimed he was badgered and bothered by the mayor to the point that it affected his health and well-being, among other quotes in the article, Resnek replied that Cornelio did not make any of those statements to him. Resnek claimed he made the statement that he didn’t need to write down the quotes or take notes because he’s “lived the story, the arc of the story, for two and a half years,” stating he knew that from talking to Cornelio and Philbin.
“None of the things that you say Mr. Cornelio said to you, said to the paper, are things that he said to you; am I right?” asked Robbins. “That’s correct,” replied Resnek.
Resnek then admitted that he has no notes of anything Cornelio or Philbin said to him, just the article he wrote.
Global implications
Robbins produced an email where Resnek sent a draft of his article to Boston Globe reporter Andrea Estes on Sept. 6, 2021, where she tells Resnek to get a copy of the $96,000 check made out to the mayor, and to provide better context as to Resnek’s claiming that “the mayor demanded another city official for a payoff.” Resnek at first claimed he didn’t know whom he sent the draft of his article to but was reminded by his attorney that he revealed his source in previous testimony.
He then admitted to writing a quote attributed to Cornelio stating that the mayor had “shook him down,” then admitted that Cornelio never made the statement. “And Mr. Cornelio had never said to you that the mayor had demanded a payoff, correct?” “That’s correct,” answered Resnek.
In the email, Estes warned Resnek that what Cornelio was alleging is a criminal act; Resnek agreed, but in spite of the warning, Resnek published the story with quotes Cornelio never said.
Resnek told Robbins that the statements were the sum and substance of what Cornelio said. When asked if he knew what the definition of a quote was, the Resnek replied that it’s “not necessarily the exact words.”
“When you use quotation marks and you say that somebody said something and you put quotation marks around them, you are representing to the reader that those are the words that he used; am I right?” asked Robbins. “Yes,” responded Resnek.
Robbins asked Resnek if, after being warned by Estes, he changed his article so that he didn’t quote Cornelio saying that the mayor demanded a payoff; Resnek claimed to not recalling that. The attorney then asked for the drafts of the article; Resnek’s Attorney, Bernie Guekguezian, stated that his office was in the process of obtaining them.
Resnek admitted to making changes – linguistic edits – to his article, sending a draft for Estes to “digest” and asking her for comments and where she would “go with this.” Resnek then stated he finished the article and then went to press.
When asked for the meaning of his remark to Estes in the email, “This doesn’t have to be a long drawn-out affair,” Resnek replied that in his mind the facts of the matter were apparent and the allegations were justifiable from what everyone and Sergio had told him. “He agreed to what was in my article,” said Resnek. “He acquiesced to everything I said to him.”
When asked to what Cornelio acquiesced, Resnek claimed that after he was finished meeting with Cornelio and “I talked about coercion, intimidation, retaliation, secret deals, theft of $96,000, “He looked at me a moment before I left his office and he said, ‘You’ve got your story,’ and I walked out of his office.”
“Did you write down any notes that reflected that he said that? asked Robbins. “No. That’s what he said to me,” replied Resnek.
“It sounds like you told him the story you were writing, is that fair to say?”
“To a great extent,” replied Resnek. “That’s correct.”
Resnek then admitted that everything he wrote attributed to Cornelio in his Sept. 8 article was said to Cornelio by him.
Resnek admitted to lying to Estes when he told her in an email that he “met with the city clerk” and “he had detailed everything to me,” telling Robbins that it was what Cornelio had detailed to Philbin and Philbin told him. Resnek admitted to the attorney that he told Cornelio the story that he was writing in part – and that he didn’t have to tell The Globe reporter his source – that it actually wasn’t him who Cornelio spoke to.
“Did Cornelio provide any details to you?” asked Robbins. “No,” replied Resnek.
“So, when you say to Andrea Estes, “He has detailed everything to me,” that’s a false statement, right? “Okay,” replied Resnek.
Resnek then told Estes that a second LLC was set up by the bank attorney to legally transfer funds from the city clerk to the mayor, “something concocted by the president of the Everett Co-operative Bank” – admitting to Robbins that he knew it wasn’t true in retrospect.
Resnek also admitted to having no evidence of meetings between Atty. David O’Neil, the mayor and Cornelio to make sure DeMaria was compensated or that the bank kept $15 million of the city’s money in its ledger account (interest free). “I had no evidence of that,” replied Resnek.
Resnek then claimed he had a source that claimed to know of the interest-free bank account at the bank but refused to name his source. And as in typical Resnek standards, he also claimed to not have any proof.
In just one of many examples, Resnek emailed to entice Estes that he knew for certain that there were emails and texts from the mayor that Cornelio had – but had never seen and couldn’t produce them. And as far as Resnek was concerned, he was writing his stories, despite never seeing a single proof that he claimed to The Globe reporter existed.
When asked about accusing the mayor in his story about violating the Ethics Commission, and then discovering that the mayor had indeed sought an opinion by the commission in his favor, if he printed an apology or clarification, Resnek stated he didn’t.
No surprise there.
The depositions are expected to continue after July as new evidence by way of communications, phone records, texts and emails between the defendants and sources is expected to be released soon.
