In a wide-ranging ruling, and a victory for the free press, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Rafael Ongkeko has ruled in favor of Hews Media Group-Community News and Publisher Brian Hews in a bogus defamation case filed by Central Basin Director Leticia Vazquez.
In response to the complaint, Hews filed what is known as an Anti-SLAPP motion and won. SLAPP is an acronym for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.
Ms. Vasquez’s phony defamation case was centered on the article “SOURCES: Central Basin Director Leticia Vasquez and Montebello Councilwoman Vanessa Delgado Attempted to Extort Money From Cook Hills Officials” published by Hews in June 2016.
Ms. Vasquez will now be liable for all of Hews’ legal fees, which currently exceed $55,000.
Her husband, 57-year-old Stanford law graduate Ron Wilson, was heavily involved in the case even though he was not the attorney of record, likely saving Ms. Vasquez a majority of her legal fees.
Mr. Wilson made a first-year law student mistake when, in one of several lengthy briefs filed with the court, he misspelled the last name of Nana Gyamfi, the attorney of record for Ms. Vasquez.
Mr. Wilson also appeared and argued the case in court, “specially appearing for Gyamfi,” and paid court fees with his own credit card.
During the litigation, Hews was blasted by his detractors and the Vasquez camp for “pulling the story out of thin air.”
Ms. Vazquez argued the case by submitting declarations from people indirectly related to the story, doing everything she could to claim that Hews made the story up.
In a stinging rebuke, the court found the declarations to be worthless and of no evidentiary value.
Judge Ongkeko said, “Hews did not concoct the article out of thin air or base it on unverified anonymous sources.”
Hews’ attorney, Scott Talkov of Reid and Hellyer based out of Riverside, had a very low opinion of Ms. Vasquez and her case.
Mr. Talkov stated, “Ms. Vasquez had no information to meet her burden of proof by clear and convincing evidence that my client had any information to doubt the truth of the allegations in his article. This case never should have been filed.”
Ms. Vasquez’s attorney, Nana Gyamfi, was the attorney of record.
Ms. Gyamfi, suspended multiple times by the state bar since 1994, twice for a period of two years where the bar ruled she had “significantly harmed her client,” six times for administrative violations, briefly argued the case, but Judge Ongkeko strongly rebuked her.
After a 10-minute diatribe, Judge Ongkeko told Ms. Gyamfi, “There is a First Amendment right I cannot overlook.”
Ms. Vasquez’s lawsuit was filed in July, more than a year after the story published.
The complaint included declarations signed the year before the case was filed.
In that time the best attorney Ms. Vasquez could hire for the case was Ms. Gyamfi, a strong signal that the case was frivolous.
Mr. Hews said, “The lawsuit was the culmination of many disreputable people banding together, people who dislike me for my investigative reporting, who want to financially harm my organization, it was an attack on free press by elected officials sworn to defend the Constitution.”
This story originated at www.loscerritosnews.net