Odds against collecting $425,000 damage award
Trout Point Lodge owners Charles Leary and Vaughn Perret and their luxury lodging firm were awarded $425,000, the largest-ever Nova Scotia defamation judgement, for general, punitive and aggravated damages, plus two separate publishing injunctions against Mississippi political blogger Doug Handshoe, by Supreme Court Justice Suzanne Hood on Wednesday.
In separate news story Thursday, Leary said, “The odds are against us collecting that award, but we are certainly going to try, and we certainly feel vindicated.” Leary and Perret announced their intention to have the judgement enforced in the United States, via the Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage (SPEECH) Act, forcing additional scrutiny from U.S. Courts. There, the pair admit they will have to prove that Handshoe would have been found liable for defamation by a domestic court applying the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States and the constitution and law of Mississippi.
Handshoe did not defend the Trout Point suit, calling it "frivoulous" on his Slabbed blog, and has claimed for some time that he welcomes the opportunity to confront Leary and Perret in the U.S. courts.
The Herald story says that Trout Point incorrectly linked to a Louisiana political corruption scandal, but Handshoe says on his blog that he stands behind all of his previous postings. The Herald also reported that "Leary and business partner Vaughn Perret, and their business, were repeatedly cleared of any involvement in the Louisiana political scandal." Research by SCT can find no record in Louisiana or Nova Scotia where the pair were charged or cleared of any involvement in the scandal.
The Herald article by Bill Power contains conflations of the very complicated factual background of the story, referring to them as a "convoluted sequence of erroneous television and newspaper reports". The New Orleans’s Times-Picayune printed retractions, but Fox 8 Television has contended in an 18-month suit in Nova Scotia Supreme Court that its coverage of the political scandal in 2010 by their key investigative reporter was accurate and correct. That case is being heard in Yarmouth by Justice Muise, who is expected to rule soon as to whether Nova Scotia or Louisiana law should apply to the case.
The scandal referred to in the Herald story involves a powerful Jefferson Parish(New Orleans) president Aaron Broussard, who was recently indicted on a 33-count federal indcitment in New Orleans charging various cases of fraud and misuse of public monies. After a recent plea deal by his ex-wife, federal prosecutors indicated that "superceding" indictments surrounding illegal use of Broussard's properties near Trout Point are likely.
In addition to being full or partial owner of several properties on the banks of the Tusket River adjacent to Trout Point Lodge, Broussard was listed as a partner in at least two Nova Scotia businesses supplying management and rental services for properties nearby. It is expected that future criminal indictments will focus in part on Broussard's use of the properties in illegal relationships with Parish vendors or contractors.
Slabbed publisher Doug Handshoe was unavailable for comment on this story.
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