Carlo DeMaria, Jr. vs. Everett Leader Herald, Sergio Cornelio, Joshua Resnek, Matthew Philbin and Andrew Philbin, Sr.
Arrogance isn’t a virtue
Guerline Alcy, former City of Everett employee and two-time failed political office seeker, has been ordered to produce documents which the mayor’s legal team believed have been withheld by Alcy when she was first subpoenaed to testify in August 2022.
According to the Feb. 17, 2023 Memorandum and Order on file with the Mass. Trial Court website, the motion reads: “On August 17, 2022, Kerby Roberson, Esquire contacted the plaintiff’s counsel by email identifying himself as counsel for Ms. Alcy, requesting a postponement of Ms. Alcy’s deposition due to scheduling conflicts, and stating that Ms. Alcy was “working on the list of documents requested,” and that “she will make every effort to comply with your request prior to the next scheduled date for the deposition.” The plaintiff’s counsel responded on August 18, 2022 agreeing to a date of September 30, 2022 for Ms. Alcy’s deposition and requested that the documents responsive to the Subpoena be produced in advance of the September 30, 2022 deposition. The plaintiff’s counsel sent several follow-up emails to Ms. Alcy’s counsel requesting that Ms. Alcy produce the documents requested in the Subpoena, but there was evidently no response to those requests.”
The mayor’s attorneys filed a Motion to Compel on Sept. 13, 2022 demanding that Alcy produce the documents within ten days of the entry and appear for her deposition within two weeks of the receipt of the documents, according to the motion.
On or about Sept. 27, 2022, Alcy’s lawyer responded with a written response to the Subpeona and on Sept. 29, 2022 served an Opposition to the Motion to Compel objecting to the Subpeona and stating that she complied with the request for documents and that the “plaintiff’s request for documents were “overly broad and not intended to illicit (sic) relevant evidence, but to harass and punish Guerline Alcy for giving an interview to a local newspaper, [and] . . . to punish Guerline Alcy for exercising her right of free speech guaranteed by the first Amendment to the US Constitution.” Ms. Alcy’s deposition was conducted by the plaintiff on September 30, 2022.”
Alcy was interviewed by corrupt Everett Leader Herald publisher/reporter Joshua Resnek for his August 2020 story in which she claimed Mayor Carlo DeMaria sexually harassed her while employed at the mayor’s office in Everett City Hall.
During her Sept. 30, 2022 deposition at Mayor DeMaria’s lawyers’ offices without the documents and communications, such as emails and cell phone texts between herself and Resnek, Alcy, when shown her email address, reacted evasively to its ownership, answering repeatedly, “That’s one of the emails.”
Alcy resigned from her position in the city’s Constituent Services/311 department after being removed from her secretarial position in the Mayor’s Office following, in her nine years of employment with the city, repeated reprimands for insubordination and bizarre behavior to her supervisor and residents.
In one example of her odd behavior during the deposition, Alcy stated that she was upset when she was dismissed from her job in the Mayor’s Office, away from the person that – she claims in an August 2022 Leader Herald newspaper article – sexually harassed her. When asked to name dates of when the principal incidents of harassment occurred, Alcy couldn’t even recall even the year that the event supposedly occured. When she was asked if she ever sent any communications to anyone about the alleged harassment, she stated she did not.
“Do you have any text, ma’am, that you ever sent to anybody asserting that Mr. DeMaria harassed you in any way? Yes or no?” asked Robbins. “Text? Not that I can remember,” replied Alcy.
“Do you have any e-mail of any kind that you ever sent to anybody asserting that Carlo DeMaria ever harassed you?” asked Robbins. “Not an e-mail,” she replied.
“Do you have any writing of any kind that you submitted to anybody asserting that Carlo DeMaria harassed you? continued the attorney. “Yes,” she replied, stating that it was the Leader Herald article written by Resnek.
Alcy stated that she only spoke to people about the incidents but never wrote anything, or communicated in writing to anyone, including the city’s Human Resources Department or the City Solicitor’s Office, in all of her nine years employed by the city.
Throughout her testimony, Alcy continued to evade questioning by claiming to not understand the questions or not offering any clear answers to the attorney’s questions. When asked about her claim of the mayor exposing himself to her, she again stated that she couldn’t even remember the year.
With respect to her response to the subpoena to provide all documents and communications with Resnek relating to DeMaria, she only provided a draft document of the article written by Resnek about her allegations.
She was confronted with an August 16, 2021, email in which Resnek suggests to her to say that she was shut out of any advancement because it was “all about being a woman, and a Black woman in a city hall run by a racist, misogynist mayor.”
“If you can’t or won’t say this for the record – I will because it is the truth,” demands Resnek in the email. Resnek then asks her to get some quotes from her cousin, Councillor Gerly Adrian, because, according to Resnek, “who knows better than her about the mayor’s racism…and others on the city council.”
Alcy would then email Resnek to suggest writing in his story that she (Alcy) “might have other reasons she is not ready to reveal yet as to why she was passed over for several promotions since Carlo does not like when people say no to him.”
The response by Mayor DeMaria’s lawyers’ motion to compel Alcy to hand over documents she appeared to be withholding, the Discovery Master, Raymond S. Ewer, Esq., appointed by the court to move the case forward, so to speak, he states, “Whether Ms. Alcy had properly complied with the plaintiff’s Subpoena is not clear. Therefore, to ensure such compliance, Guerline Alcy is hereby ordered to take the following actions and make the following certifications by affidavit: 1. Identify all email accounts utilized by Guerline Lacy from Jan. 1, 2011 through August 11, 2022; 2. Perform a search of all email accounts from 2011 through 2022; 3. Print all responsive documents found in the search and attach to the affidavit without regard to whether those documents have been previously produced; 4. Certify that the search has been conducted; 5. Certify that she (Alcy) has searched and produced all documents within her possession, custody, or control responsive of the Subpoena; and 6. Certify that from Aug. 11, 2022 to the date of signing the affidavit, she had not destroyed, or instructed or permitted another person to destroy any documents or items in her possession, custody, or control responsive to the Subpoena, but, if any such document or item has been destroyed, and if no copy exists within the possession, custody, or control of Ms. Alcy, she is to identify the document and the date of its destruction, the person responsible for ordering the destruction, the person performing the destruction, the method of destruction, and the reason for destruction.”
Lacy must prepare and execute the affidavit by her counsel to all parties on or before March 3, 2023.