LOUISIANA POLITICIAN AARON BROUSSARD IS SERVING A 46-MONTH PRISON SENTENCE ON A BRIBERY SCHEME PLEA DEAL
$75,000 damages expected by plaintiff for "reckless disregard for truth"
The Halifax Chronicle Herald and Toronto Star may soon be heading to a court in Mississippi to answer a defamation suit filed by Mississippi blogger Doug Handshoe, who claims the Herald and Star recklessly and intentionally caused him harm in 2014 stories about Handshoe's legal wrangling with the owners of swanky Trout Point Lodge near the Tobeatic wilderness.
In the Civil Complaint for Damages against The Chronicle Herald filed in the Circuit Court of Hancock County in February, Handshoe tells the court that he is the victim of an on-going scheme to cover up the roles Trout Point Lodge, Ltd and its owners, referred to as the "Trout Point Group", in a "bribery and money scheme masterminded by former Jefferson Parish (Louisiana) Parish president Aaron Broussard."
The Toronto Star suit - which also names reporter Peter Edwards, according to Handshoe, has a similar pleading, based on a story by reporter Edwards.
Broussard is serving a 46-month term in a federal prison in Florida after a 2012 plea bargain in a bribery and corruption case in Louisiana.
In his Herald suit, Handshoe alleges that the Trout Point Group have been conducting a "campaign of litigation terrorism" with defamation suits against Handshoe, Fox 8 New Orleans TV and the Times-Picayune newspaper.
The suit also accuses the Trout Point Group of suing four of Handshoe's lawyers and one of their own, and has sued Handshoe individually five times; three suits in Canada and two in Louisiana.
In the case for which Broussard is serving federal time, Handshoe's pleading says the US Attorney named a company called Nova Scotia Enterprises, LLC "a Broussard bribery scheme."
Handshoe's suit claims that a February 14, 2014 story by The Herald which he says falsely characterized his reporting on the Broussard scandal and Trout Point as a "campaign of homophobia" and falsely described him as a "anti-homosexual blogger." The pleading says that there has "never been such a finding in a court of law."
Handshoe's suit also claims that Canadian courts and its newspapers have "become the refuge for felonious United States politicians" and says that the story damaged his reputation in Mississippi.
Nova Scotia courts have found against Handshoe in two defamation suits, neither of which the blogger defended. Attempts to have the suits enrolled in US courts for collecting the hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage awards have been unsuccessful, with Handshoe and his attorneys awarded substantial legal fee awards in those cases.
He asserts in the suit that the Chronicle Herald "...never undertook so much as a cursory investigation of the proceedings..." to which the story referred. He characterizes the article as "...false, defamatory and libelous and published with reckless disregard for the truth."
When contacted by SCT, Chronicle Herald vice president of operations Nancy Cook said the paper would have no comment on the case. Staff contacted at the Toronto Star would not comment for this story.
The Herald and Star have 30 days in which to respond to the suit.
