A judge has ruled Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria Jr. is entitled to real estate attachments up to $850,000 on defendants’ real estate assets to cover the damages the mayor “has demonstrated a likelihood that he will recover judgment” in his defamation action against the Leader Herald and its owners.
“This is a highly unusual ruling in a defamation case, particularly one brought by a public official where the standard is demonstrating actual malice,” Jeff Robbins, one of DeMaria’s attorneys, told the Herald Friday. “The ruling speaks to the egregiousness of the evidence that was presented to the court, showing that these defendants had acted in a way that was dishonest and intentional.”
Robbins is, in addition to serving as one of DeMaria’s attorneys, a regular contributing columnist for the Boston Herald.
Middlesex Superior Associate Justice William F. Bloomer ruled Friday morning in partial favor of the plaintiff’s motion “to attach real estate and for a preliminary injunction” against the individual defendants in the case Matthew Philbin and Joshua Resnek.
“On the record currently before the court, Plaintiff, Carlos DeMaria Jr., has demonstrated a likelihood that he will recover judgment, including interest and costs, in an amount equal to or greater than the amount of the attachment over and above any liability insurance shown by Defendants to be available to satisfy judgment,” Bloomer wrote. “The Court therefore approves real estate attachments in the amount of $850,000.”
Writs of attachment allow for pre-judgment security against real property for the minimum amount of likely damages to cover the likely future damage award. That’s the case here, where the defendants’ own insurance company has filed a lawsuit asserting it does not have any obligations to them due to their intentional misconduct.
DeMaria’s attorneys filed suit in October of 2021 with a 24-page complaint and 14 exhibits for a total filing of 100 pages. It claims that the Everett Leader Herald, the local newspaper in the city of Everett, and three senior members of its staff issued “malicious and outrageous publications of defamatory falsehoods concerning the plaintiff … in the weeks leading up to the Sept. 21, 2021 primary for Everett’s mayoral election,” falsely accusing him of various crimes.
It cites a series of articles published in the newspaper — whose editions are reviewed and approved by Matthew Philbin and Andrew Philbin Sr., both of Lynnfield, and the paper’s publisher and editor Joshua Resnek — focused on a purported real estate scandal involving Mayor DeMaria and City Clerk Serio Cornelio.
The articles claim that DeMaria extorted Cornelio to the tune of $96,000 for a real estate deal DeMaria purportedly had “nothing to do with.” But, the complaint states, it was all a lie. The men were actually in a joint venture together.
The lengthy exhibits included in the complaint include text and email exchanges between DeMaria and Cornelio about the purchase and their plans for converting the single-family home into a multi-unit property.
“Under their agreement, Mr. Cornelio would pay the loan and Mr. DeMaria would obtain the architects, contractors, and other professionals,” the suit states.
The complaint underscores an apparent “Longstanding Vendetta Against Mr. DeMaria” on the part of the Philbins since the 1990s when DeMaria was a city alderman who did not renew “the licenses of non-compliant boarding houses … including those owned by the Philbins,” and that their purchase of the Leader Herald in 2017 was for “the primary purpose of having a newspaper through which to publicly attack Mr. DeMaria.”
Depositions taken of the defendants since the complaint was filed — as well as further discovery — reveal admissions that they knew the articles were false. That includes admissions they knew DeMaria had not engaged in any criminal conduct.
Further, Cornelio has also admitted the quotes attributed to him in the articles were fabricated and he never provided them.
Discovery has also shown the defendants had intended to damage the mayor.
“We will crush this guy,” Resnek allegedly writes of DeMaria to Matthew Philbin in a Dec. 22, 2020, email included in an amended complaint. “He’s had 12 years to build himself up. We’re into our second full year of trying to take him out.”
When asked in his deposition whether he “had been making up stuff about the mayor for some time” Resnek responded, “Yes, sir.”