Page 4 THE REVERE ADVOCATE – FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2024 VICTORY | FROM Page 3 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 fi led 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 Jeff rey 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. Attorney Jeff ery Robbins of Saul Ewing LLP shares his remarks with the media regarding Mayor Carlo DeMaria’s settlement in the defamation case against the Everett Leader Herald. “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 confi dential. 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 infl ict severe damage not only on me but on my family, and that they specifi cally hoped and intended would drive me out of offi ce, 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 refl ection 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. VICTORY | SEE Page 9
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