QAnon “Patriot Reporter” Claims Newspaper Libeled Him by Saying He Had Admitted to “Sexual Relationship” with 15-Year-Old
From Godlewski v. Kelly, decided last week by Judge Terrence Nealon (Pa. Ct. Common Please, Lackawanna County); the opinion is over 13,000 words long, so this is just an excerpt:
A self-proclaimed “patriot reporter,” who claims to be “one of the highest Anons” in the QAnon movement and to earn $5,000,000.00 per month from his QAnon broadcasts on social media, has instituted this litigation advancing claims for defamation and false light invasion of privacy against a newspaper and its op-ed columnist based upon an article that they published on February 14, 2021.
The ironic gist of the opinion column at issue was that the QAnon broadcaster, who affirmatively states in his published videos on social media that certain high-ranking elected and public officials are satanic, cannibalistic pedophiles sexually abusing children and drinking their blood to ingest the life-extending chemical adrenochrome, previously pled guilty in this county to corruption of a minor resulting from a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl while he was a 27-year-old baseball coach at her school….
Godlewski contends that the article of February 14, 2021, contains three factual statements that are false and defamatory. First, he alleges that the article falsely stated that he “had a sexual relationship” with Ms. DuBorgel when she was a minor. Second, Godlewski asserts that by using the word “Unreal-tor” to describe him, the article falsely made an “imputation that [he] was not fit to be a realtor.” Third, he avers that Kelly’s article falsely tied “Godlewski to the criminal insurrection at the Capitol on January 6” where there “were criminal acts for which people have been criminally prosecuted and criminally convicted.” {Godlewski does not allege that Kelly’s representations relating to Godlewski’s active involvement with and support of the QAnon movement are untrue or defamatory.} …
Godlewski’s guilty plea and sentencing in Godlewski I, his arrest in Godlewski II, and his above-quoted social media QAnon broadcasts predated the publication of Kelly’s article on February 14, 2021. As noted above, the only text messages quoted in the Affidavit of Probable Cause in Godlewski I are those in which Godlewski acknowledged and described oral sex with Ms. DuBorgel, the presence of her hair in his “crotch area,” and his sexual activity with her in 2010 when she was 15 years of age. Those text messages served as the factual predicate for the single count of Corruption of Minors, 18 Pa. C.S. § 6301(a)(1), contained in the Criminal Information charging that Godlewski “did repeatedly have inappropriate text [m]essages and contact with a minor” in 2010. Docket Entry No. 6. Indeed, Godlewski’s counsel conceded at the time of oral argument that “[t]he corruption of minors count in the complaint was consistent with the information in the affida
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