Frank Lucente, a member of Waynesboro City Council, is suing the editorial board of the News Virginian and the newspaper’s parent company, Richmond-based Media General, which also publishes The Daily Progress. Lucente alleges that the paper’s editorial board libeled him when on May 1 they published an editorial accusing him of unethical conduct.
Lucente seeks a total of $1 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
The suit, filed late last month in Waynesboro Circuit Court, names six defendants, including George Mahoney, vice president of Media General, and the five-member News Virginian editorial board: pub-lisher Bruce Potter, managing editor J. Todd Foster, circulation director Randy Terwilliger, advertising director Martina Hancock and copy editor George Woods.
On May 1, one day before the Waynesboro City Council election, the News Virginian ran an editorial headlined, “Don’t let one man decide our election.”
The editorial says that “the real force” behind the Council election is Lucente, who was appointed to his seat in April 2005 to replace a resigning councilor. The editorial called the appointment “a preordained deal” with Councilmen Reo Hatfield and Tim Williams.
Further, the editorial claimed that Lucente approached Lorie Smith, Hatfield’s top opponent in the May 2006 election, and asked her to quit the race: “Let Hatfield win, [Lucente] said, then Hatfield would be elected mayor but resign in two years. Lucente promised Smith she would be appointed to Hatfield’s vacant seat. Smith said no way.”
In his suit Lucente claims to have never made any such comments or promises to Smith.
In order to win his libel suit, Lucente must prove that the News Virginian acted with “actual malice,” meaning that it published false information knowingly or with reckless disregard for the truth in order to damage Lucente’s reputation.
News Virginian Publisher Bruce Potter had no comment.
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