Mayor’s attorney vows to get tough on smear letter’s author

Mayor Kip Holden retained no-nonsense attorney Mary Olive Pierson to investigate an election year smear letter sent to thousands of people in the parish accusing the mayor and a local woman of infidelity.

The letter could lead to a defamation suit by both the mayor and the woman the letter alleges was his mistress.

“The people behind this, they don’t mind blabbering about it. And I’ve got investigators working on the file,” Pierson says. “These people are about as dumb as a box of rocks.”

Pierson, whose high-profile clients have included former Agriculture Commissioner Bob Odom and fired LSU women’s basketball coach Pokey Chatman, called the letter a campaign piece, which would involve finance disclosure laws. The letter was signed by a mysterious Rev. Charles Matthews, who can’t be reached or found, and who hasn’t stepped forward to take credit for the letter.

Scott Wilfong, a political consultant and member of the Republican State Central Committee, hired Printing Tech to mail the letters, but he refuses to disclose who his client is.

A review of Louisiana Board of Ethics records shows that Wilfong has represented a number of high-profile local politicians, including mayoral candidate and Metro Councilman Wayne “Spider” Carter. Carter denies having anything to do with the letter.

Metro Councilman Byron Sharper, a political adversary of Holden’s, also has denied involvement with the letter. However, he said this week he’s interested in investigating the letter’s allegations further, including pulling records of Holden’s movements.

Both Holden and the woman mentioned in the letter have denied the allegations of an affair.

“I’m willing to take a polygraph test to say this one thousand percent did not happen,” Holden said last week. “It’s a manufactured story, and I expect them to send more and more.”

Local attorney Stephen Babcock, who has read the flyer, says the case may wind up in court.

“Mayor Holden’s alleged mistress, who was named and pictured in the flyer, has an excellent case for defamation,” Babcock says. “The statements are of such an inflammatory nature that any court would find them to be ‘defamation per se.'”

To win such a lawsuit, Babcock says, a plaintiff would need to prove the author of the letter, with either actual malice or fault, published a false and defamatory statement that damaged the plaintiff.

When a statement is “defamation per se,” it is presumed the author had malice, Babcock explained. “All she would be required to do is prove that the publication of the flyer caused her an injury (for example, injury to reputation, personal humiliation, embarrassment, mental anguish, anxiety, and hurt feelings) and she has made her prima facie case of defamation.”

The woman’s attorney, Michael Walsh, said he is pursuing all legal options against the letter’s author, assuring that they would discover who was behind it.

Even though the letter may have been designed to hurt Holden politically, it easily may wind up hurting the person behind it even more. “The piece is so outrageous and outlandish and out of the box it sort of had a reverse impact than what these people intended,” Pierson says. “There’s so much about it that’s just easily disprovable, I should say. Most think it’s too bizarre.”

Holden could have a more difficult time proving defamation because he is a public figure. However, Babcock says, Holden’s purported conduct described in the letter might be considered private. “One must squint pretty hard to accept that, even if true, allegations about an extramarital affair would fall within the scope of ‘public conduct,'” Babcock says.

Pierson says just because Holden’s is an elected official does not open him up to unlimited attacks on his character. “You don’t get a free pass,” Pierson says. “It simply raises the level of proof to show more that the allegations were false.”