From Godlewski v. Kelly, decided last week by Judge Terrence Nealon (Pa. Ct. Common Pleas, 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 affidavit.”
In his guilty plea colloquy in Godlewski I, Godlewski admitted that his executed colloquy was a “signed statement,” that he “kn[e]w exactly what you are charged with and what you are pleading to,” that he understood “that by pleading guilty you are admitting that you did the things you are charged with,” that he understood “the elements of the crime charged that you are pleading to,” and that he “admit[ted] that you did the above stated act” constituting corruption of a minor. The following clause appears directly above his signature on his guilty plea colloquy:
I affirm that I have read the above document in its entirety and have reviewed it with my attorney. I affirm that I am aware of the full implications of pleading guilty and nevertheless wish to plead to the specified offense(s). I further affirm that my signature on this Guilty Plea Colloquy and initials on each page of this document are true and correct.
Based upon the truthfulness of Godlewski’s attestation, Judge Geroulo accepted Godlewski’s guilty plea and sentenced him to three months to 23 months house arrest. It is “well settled that a guilty plea constitutes an admission to all of the facts averred in the indictment,” and that a trial court may grant summary judgment based upon such an admission….
Godlewski claims that Kelly falsely reported that he “pleaded guilty to corruption of minors and admitted to having a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl.” Based upon the content of Godlewski’s text messages which served as the factual basis for the corruption of a minor charge set forth in the Criminal Information, and Godlewski’s sworn plea to that specific crime in a court of law, both of the foregoing statements made by Kelly in his article are true. As a result of Godlewski’s guilty plea to “inappropriate text [m]essages” and “contact” with Ms. DuBorgel, as set forth in the Affidavit of Probable Cause quoting the offending text messages admitting and memorializing a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old minor, Godlewski is collaterally estopped from denying his participation in a sexual relationship with Ms. DuBorgel in 2010. Thus, Godlewski has failed to come forward with sufficient evidence creating a genuine issue of material fact concerning the claimed falsity of Kelly’s statement that Godlewski “pleaded guilty to corruption of minors and admitted to having a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl.” …
Godlewski alternatively alleges that Kelly made false factual statements by indicating that Godlewski was “selling rabbit holes” and by displaying an image of an “Unreal-tor” sign in the accompanying cartoon, thereby suggesting “unreality” on Godlewski’s part and questioning his fitness as a realtor in the process. Kelly testified that he viewed Godlewski’s QAnon videos before he authored “an opinion column” about Godlewski. Kelly stated that his article did not “raise an inference that Mr. Godlewski is not fit to be a realtor” because of his QAnon activities, but agreed that he utilized a “rabbit hole figuratively” to reference “the QAnon movement and the rabbit holes people go down believing all this nonsensical stuff.” Kelly considers the illustration prepared by The Scranton Times’ John Cole depicting a rabbit hole and “Unreal-tor” sign to be “a very clever parody on [Godlewski’s] job as a realtor and what he was doing” in broadcasting baseless QAnon conspiracies.
It is noteworthy that the phrase “rabbit hole” has been used in other court proceedings and legal publications to describe the effect of the QAnon movement on its adherents. Other legal journals have similarly noted the detachment from reality of QAnon’s conspiracy theories. Hence, Kelly and The Scranton Times are not alone in using the word “unreal” and the phrase “rabbit holes” in describing the QAnon movement and its activities.
Prior to the publication of the article at issue, Godlewski had publicly broadcasted on social media that United Airlines Flight 93 never crashed in Somerset County on September 11, 2001, that Stephen Paddock did not shoot and kill 60 people and wound another 413 individuals in a mass shooting from the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas, that former President Donald Trump had authorized and presided over the executions of President Biden, Hillary Clinton, and other public figures by military tribunals, that the late President George H. W. Bush was also executed by a military tribunal due to the Bush family’s involvement with children sex-trafficking, that various Democratic officials were molesting children and drinking their blood to ingest adrenochrome in the basement of a Washington pizzeria, and other equally absurd representations. Such public pronouncements reflect a declarant who is untethered from reality, and Kelly has testified that he viewed those videos prior to preparing his article.
Even when the summary judgment record is viewed in a light most favorable to Godlewski as the nonmoving party, it demonstrates that the “sells rabbits holes” reference in the title and the “UNREAL-TOR” sign and rabbit hole appearing in the cartoon illustration are mere parody rather than actionable statements of fact….
Godlewski’s final claimed statements of fact concern Kelly’s representation that Godlewski “happily calls out the cadence” of the QAnon movement and is “a purveyor of a poison,” which Godlewski asserts conveys that he bears some responsibility for the “criminal acts” committed during the Capitol riot. Kelly testified that the words “happily calls out the cadence” constituted “figurative language” that referenced Godlewski’s broadcasts on January 6, 2021, when he “said that [Vice President Mike] Pence had been arrested,” which statement “got [Godlewski] in U.S.A. Today,” and Godlewski’s “rallying cry” that the Democratic legislators should be “arrested” and “get executed at top levels.” As for the phrase “purveyor of a poison,” Kelly indicated that he was referring to “the lies and nonsense and disinformation and misinformation that [Godlewski] was spreading on the Internet,” such as representing as true that “the real Joe Biden has been executed and the guy who’s in the White House is a body double … in a studio out in Arizona,” and “that [Godlewski] had traveled in time and talked to Nikola Tesla.”
The role of the QAnon movement and its followers in the events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, has been widely reported in legal literature. However, Kelly “never said [Godlewski] was at the rally” in his article. To the contrary, Kelly’s article expressly states that “Godlewski told me he wasn’t at the Capitol on January 6, but he showed up in USA Today’s coverage of riot” after “Godlewski posted on Facebook that Vice President Mike Pence had been arrested.”
Once again, Godlewski has not identified sufficient evidence indicating that Kelly made false factual statements “tying Mr. Godlewski to the criminal insurrection at the Capitol on January 6.” Kelly’s reference to Godlewski happily “calling out the cadence” of the QAnon movement is supported by the plethora of QAnon conspiracies broadcasted by Godlewski on social media and viewed by Kelly prior to authoring his article. The other description of Godlewski as a “purveyor of poison” constitutes satirical commentary by Kelly based upon Godlewski’s above-quoted QAnon broadcasts, rather than an actionable false statement of fact. Therefore, Kelly and The Scranton Times are entitled to summary judgment due to the absence of sufficient evidence in the record that Kelly or The Scranton Times made a false statement of fact regarding Godlewski in the article published on February 14, 2021.
J. Timothy Hinton, Jr. (Haggerty, Hinton & Cosgrove, LLP) represent defendants.
