ACLU prepared to defend Warwick media outlets threatened with lawsuit over posting public report

THE RHODE ISLAND branch of the American Civil Liberties Union said it will provide legal representation to two Warwick media outlets if they are sued over publishing a public document.
THE RHODE ISLAND branch of the American Civil Liberties Union said it will provide legal representation to two Warwick media outlets if they are sued over publishing a public document.

WARWICK – The American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island said it will provide legal representation to two Warwick media outlets if they are sued for writing about a report that details how school administrators handled accusations of sexual misconduct made against a Gorton Junior High School science teacher.
The ACLU said both the Warwick Post and the Warwick Beacon were threatened with a defamation suit by the Warwick School Department’s outgoing director of human resources Rosemary Healey if they wrote about the contents of the public document.
The document can be found on both the Warwick Beacon website and Warwick Post website.
The 78-page report, dated May 11, deals with the issues involving teacher Mario Atoyan in 2013, and includes testimony from lawyer Vincent Ragosta to the School Committee. Ragosta, who was hired by the School Committee, looked into reports that Atoyan drew penises on the arms of two female students. The report also details how administrators responded.

Atoyan, of North Kingstown, was arrested in March 2015 for felony sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl related to him. His case is scheduled for a pretrial conference on May 16. After his arrest, he was placed on administrative leave.

The Attorney General recently ruled that the report, with certain information redacted, was a public record, according to the ACLU.

Healey’s attorney, Jeffrey Sowa, said Healey had not “been given the opportunity to substantively review the report,” calling the report “neither fair nor impartial” and “defamatory and malicious” in his letters to the publishers of the Post and Beacon. Sowa, according to the ACLU, wrote that the publishers would “not be insulated from liability” for releasing information about the report, and that they should “cease and desist from publishing any matters relating to” Healey.

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ACLU volunteer attorneys Neal McNamara and William Wynne from Nixon Peabody LLP will defend the media outlets if they are sued.
Warwick Post publisher and editor Robert Borkowski said he’s been threatened before with “frivolous lawsuits” intended to scare him away from reporting on public matters.
“This was the first time it directly threatened a business I owned, though, and it rattled me. But Attorney Sowa, who must surely be aware of First Amendment protections regarding reporting on public officials and documents, sought to bully Mr. Howell and me into walking away from our responsibility to give the parents of Warwick the information they need to assess the deeds of the people they entrust their children to each day … Fortunately for Warwick parents, Mr. Howell, and me, the ACLU of Rhode Island has agreed to offer us legal representation if Sowa and his client make good on their threat,” he said.

John Howell, publisher of the Warwick Beacon, added: “Ever since the School Committee completed an investigation of how its administrators handled complaints about a teacher drawing phallic symbols on the arm of a junior high school female student last spring, the Warwick Beacon has sought to get a copy of that report. That request was denied by the committee and later by the city after it used its subpoena powers to get the school report. Fortunately, the Attorney General agrees the report is public.”

ACLU of RI Executive Director Steven Brown said that a public employee’s threat to sue newspapers “attacks the very heart of the freedom of the press.”
“The public document at issue here deserves a full airing, and the First Amendment was designed to allow that airing. We are prepared to vigorously defend the Post and the Beacon from this threatened abuse of the legal process,” Brown said.

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