Lehigh County controller sues local Republican committee for defamation, seeks more than $1 million in damages

• By Olivia Marble/LehighValleyNews.com

A legal showdown is about to take place between Lehigh County Controller Mark Pinsley, an incumbent Democrat, and local Republicans.

Pinsley filed a defamation lawsuit Wednesday in county court against the Lehigh County Republican Committee after it sent out a mailer this weekend saying he marched in a “pro-Hamas” rally.

Pinsley is seeking more than $1 million in punitive damages for the “extreme emotional distress, humiliation, depression, embarrassment, anguish and anxiety” and “a physical manifestation of said distress” that continues.

“This is a malicious and false attack on a person of Jewish faith, intended to destroy his reputation in the Jewish community,” Pinsley’s lawyer Matthew Mobilio said at a news conference to announce the suit.

“Therefore, we are pursuing claims of libel and intentional infliction of emotional distress, and we will be seeking punitive damages.”

The mailer cites an article about the Oct. 13 pro-Palestinian rally in Allentown, which Pinsley attended, as proof of its claim. It also claims Pinsley wants to “defund the police.”

“I stand with the people of Palestine, not with Hamas. I stand with the people of Israel, not with Netanyahu.”

Lehigh County Controller Mark Pinsley

 

Pinsley said the rally was not pro-Hamas; it was pro-Palestinians, and that he wanted to audit a third-party vendor contract, not defund the police.

“I understand that we have our differences in the political theater,” Pinsley said at the news conference.

“However, describing me, a practicing Jewish man, as someone who supports Hamas and wants to defund the police without any support for those positions from cited sources is simply unconscionable.”

Pinsley called the mailer “anti-Semitic,” saying it portrayed him as a “self-hating Jew.”

“I stand with the people of Palestine, not with Hamas,” Pinsley said. “I stand with the people of Israel, not with [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu.”

The lawsuit

The lawsuit names as defendants every member of the executive leadership of the committee, including Chairman Joe Vichot, Vice Chairwoman Linda Swankoski, Secretary Jacqueline Rivera, Assistant Secretary Pam Roth and Treasurer Ray Leister.

Pinsley is suing for libel as a public official rather than a public citizen, meaning he has to prove committee members acted with actual malice. Mobilio said he thinks he can prove that.

The lawsuit has been filed but has not yet been accepted by the courts.

The suit asks a judge to award an undetermined monetary sum for punitive damages. One section alone asks the judge to award more than $1 million in punitive damages.

It says the defendants’ conduct was “extreme and outrageous.”

The suite also asks for defendants to be required to “immediately cease public distribution and publication of any and all print, television, radio and any other forms of media regarding plaintiff’s alleged non-payment of taxes.”

And it asks that defendants to be required ti issue a public retraction of their allegations and make a public apology to Pinsley.

Pinsley is running for re-election against Republican Robert Smith Jr. in the upcoming election on Nov. 7.

Pinsley is a member of Congregation Keneseth Israel, a synagogue in Allentown that recently received a bomb threat.

A representative from the Lehigh County Republican Committee said the organization currently does not have a statement in response to the lawsuit.

Chairman Joe Vichot is out of town, and he is the only member who can issue a statement, the representative said.