A Superior Court judge has dismissed the defamation lawsuit brought by Jonathan De Barros against four Republicans he accused of undermining his congressional campaign by referring to him as a murderer when describing his fatally shooting one man and wounding another in 1996.
De Barros, a Republican, did not dispute that he shot the two young men outside a recreation center in Waterbury and was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of murder, attempted murder and assault with a firearm. But De Barros claimed he cannot be called a murderer due to an appellate decision and a pardon.
Judge John Cordani wrote in his decision that De Barros failed to meet the high burden of proving that the “political speech” employed by the defendants during a campaign was defamatory, and that a pardon expunges De Barros’s criminal record without erasing the fact he killed one young man and wounded another.
De Barros, whose suit was filed before he lost a Republican primary last month, had sought damages and a gag order barring the defendants from further commenting on his criminal record.
“Political speech of this nature is at the very heart of our right to freedom of speech since it bears upon the public’s ability to make informed decisions on the operation of our republic and on their choice of representative,” Cordani wrote in a 10-page decision dated Sept. 4.
Cordani also wrote that “although a pardon can wipe away an official criminal record, it cannot wipe clean the public consciousness of what actually happened.”
De Barros declined comment Tuesday. He lost a primary last month for the Republican nomination in the 5th Congressional District to Chris Shea, who now faces U.S. Rep. Jahana Hayes, a Democrat, in the general election.
The state Appellate Court overturned De Barros’ murder conviction in July 2000 and ordered a new trial, concluding the original judge had erred in barring evidence relevant to De Barros’ claim that he shot the victims in self-defense. A second trial ended in a hung jury.
De Barros then pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter under the Alford Doctrine, which allows a defendant to maintain innocence while conceding the state had evidence for a conviction. The plea deal resulted in a reduced sentence, and De Barros ultimately served 19 years in prison.
His lawsuit accused four people of defamation: Jeff Weiss and Pam Salamone, who were Shea delegates at the GOP nominating convention; and Steve Pedbereznak and Dawn Maiorano for comments De Barros says they made on a podcast. Maiorano was a Republican nominee for mayor of Waterbury, and Pedbereznak is a former Waterbury police officer.
In his lawsuit, De Barros said Salamone referred to him as a murderer in conversations with other delegates at the Republican convention and that Weiss wrote on Facebook and Twitter that De Barros “claimed to be a victim in 1996 while murdering a man in cold blood.”
“It is clear, and the plaintiff has admitted, that the statements which form the basis of all of the plaintiff’s claims rest on the exercise of the defendants’ right to freedom of speech on matters of public concern,” Cordani wrote. “The complained of statements are commentary on the fitness of the plaintiff for federal public office and were made during an active political campaign.”
Cordani wrote that the defendants’ remarks — some of which they denied saying — were protected political speech, unless they acted with actual malice.
“In order to establish actual malice, the defendants must be found to have had actual knowledge of the falsity of the statements or reckless disregard towards the falsity of the statements,” Cordani wrote.
Rep. Craig Fishbein of Wallingford, a lawyer and ranking Republican on the legislature’s Judiciary Committee, had filed the original motion for a dismissal on behalf of Weiss. He called De Barros’ litigation a SLAPP suit, an acronym for a “strategic lawsuit against public participation,” the tag lawyers apply to frivolous actions filed to intimidate or silence critics.
