Tag: lawsuits

‘Most prolific pedophile priest.’ New suit resurfaces notorious Florida case

A new lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Miami has revived a notorious case involving a former Catholic priest convicted of a string of sex offenses more than a decade ago.

The most recent lawsuit, filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court in June, is only the latest accusing the Catholic Church of failing to protect multiple underage boys from Neil Doherty, a serial sexual abuser who was employed by the archdiocese as a priest from 1969 until 2002, when he was removed.

“He is probably the most prolific pedophile priest in U.S. history. He sexually abused, we think, thousands of kids over the course of about 40 years,” said Daniel Ellis, senior lead attorney at Herman Law, the firm representing a victim identified only as John Doe 8 to protect his privacy.

According to the lawsuit, Doherty groomed and raped the victim around 1995, when he was around 16 years old. The alleged abuse happened multiple times in Doherty’s residence in the mid-1990s.

The lawsuit comes decades after the abuse took place and after Doherty was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in Florida prison in 2013.

At least four other civil lawsuits naming seven plaintiffs (John Doe 1-7) have been filed against the archdiocese in the past five years, naming Doherty as the primary abuser and seeking “compensatory damages” for the years of inflicted “emotional distress.” The more recent cases against Doherty appear to have been settled, though the law firm would not discuss details of those settlements.

In 2006, the Miami Herald reported that the church settled six civil suits, including two against Doherty, for $750,000.

In a statement to the Miami Herald, the archdiocese said it is “in the process of responding to a lawsuit involving allegations of sexual abuse of a minor by a former priest that occurred over twenty-nine years ago.”

“As always, the Catholic Church’s concerns are for the victims and a prevailing sense of justice and healing,” the statement said.

The archdiocese said that Doherty was “permanently removed from active ministry within the Archdiocese and the universal Catholic Church in April 2002,” and since the disgraced and defrocked priest has been named in multiple lawsuits.

“As is the Archdiocese’s practice, any allegation of sexual abuse of a minor by a priest is immediately reported to the appropriate State Attorney’s Office in Monroe, Miami-Dade, or Broward County,” the statement said.

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Is the Extensive US Vaccine Schedule Harmful?

The US childhood vaccination programme is huge, 68 vaccine doses targeting 18 different diseases versus only 17 vaccine doses for 10 diseases in Denmark.1

It is unknown if the net effect of so many vaccinations is beneficial, and in August 2025, two physicians launched a federal lawsuit2 against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for failing to study the cumulative effects of its childhood vaccine schedule. They noted that “America administers more vaccines than any nation on earth while producing the sickest children in the developed world.”2

Two researchers who have compared countries found a dose-response relationship: Nations that require more vaccines for their infants had higher infant mortality, neonatal mortality, and under age five mortality.3

Paediatric chronic disease prevalence in the US has risen to nearly 30% in the last 20 years,4 and vaccination schedules are among the possible causal factors that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services, has declared he will investigate. A CDC workgroup will examine if there are any differences in efficacy or safety between the US and Danish schedules.5 They will also look at the the timing, order, and ingredients, e.g. the amount of aluminium, which is pertinent, as aluminium in vaccines is harmful.6

I am aware of only one study in the whole world that used birth cohorts and compared the occurrence of chronic diseases in a vaccinated group with that in an unvaccinated group and that took account of confounders. It was carried out at the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit but was never published because the researchers were warned that it could cost them their jobs.7 The study was completed in 2020, and its results8 came to light on 9 September 2025 because it was introduced into the Congressional Record during a Senate hearing on “The Corruption of Science.”7

For over two decades,5 the Institute of Medicine had urged the CDC to conduct such a study using its Vaccine Safety Datalink, but the CDC never did.

A ground rule in evidence-based medicine is that we should use the best available evidence when we make decisions. As the Henry Ford study is the only one that compared unvaccinated with vaccinated kids for development of chronic diseases and that took account of confounders, it is very important that we examine this study carefully for its validity. 

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Huge win for Wisconsin mom who was sued for calling a teacher woke

A Wisconsin mom who was sued for defamation after calling an English teacher woke has won her free speech case.

Mother-of-five Scarlett Johnson took to social media in October 2022 to criticize Mary MacCudden for serving as Mequon-Thiensville School District’s social justice coordinator.

‘Why the hell am I paying for a “Social Justice Coordinator” in my school district?’ Johnson tweeted alongside a screenshot of MacCudden’s LinkedIn profile.

‘This is just what @mtschools needs; more woke, White women w/ a god complex. Thank you, White savior.’ 

Johnson, who is affiliated with education lobby group Moms for Liberty, in other social media posts, also referred to DEI specialists as ‘woke lunatics’ who ‘bully’ parents ‘into silence and compliance’.

MacCudden, who had resigned from her position at Homestead High School in January 2022, filed a defamation suit against Johnson in response.

She won her case against Johnson in lower court, but the Moms for Liberty activist’s legal team appealed the ruling.

The Wisconsin appeals court on Tuesday ruled to reverse the circuit courts ruling after determining that her statements ‘do not constitute defamation’.

MacCudden resigned from the school district in January 2022 but did not update her LinkedIn profile, according to a press release from Johnson’s lawyers.

Roughly 10 months later, Johnson discovered the profile, which listed MacCudden as the district’s ‘Social Justice Coordinator’, and started criticizing the district online.

MacCudden responded with a defamation suit, which went to trial.  

An appeals court has now ruled Johnson did not defame the former teacher because her statements ‘cannot be proven true or false.’

‘Free speech belongs to every mom, dad, and citizen who demands answers and accountability from their government,’ Johnson said in a statement by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL).

‘I am grateful that WILL stood alongside me in this legal battle. Parents across the country are speaking out against radical ideology in our schools, and our fight does not stop today.’

Johnson’s lawyers argued that while Johnson’s social media posts were ‘pervasive’, her words were ‘more restrained than a lot of online speech’.

Her legal counsel added that her posts could not be defamatory because they were ‘statements of opinion that are not provably false’.

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Lawsuit Targeting Decades-Old Journal Article Triggers Renewed Scrutiny of Fraudulent Scientific Studies

A lawsuit demanding the retraction of a decades-old peer-reviewed article that claimed the antidepressant paroxetine, sold as Paxil, is safe and effective has put the issue of fraud in scientific and medical journals back in the spotlight, Paul D. Thacker wrote today in The Disinformation Chronicle.

The lawsuit, filed last month against the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and its publisher, Elsevier, demands the retraction of a 2001 article in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP).

The article was based on Study 329, which the suit claims distorted data to claim Paxil was effective.

The complaint alleges that JAACAP editors and Elsevier refused to retract the article “in an apparent attempt to shield at least five of the … authors who are prominent members of the AACAP from possible ramifications of retraction.”

Study 329 was ghostwritten by Paxil manufacturer GSK — which Thacker discussed in a 2011 report he republished today.

Several of the journal article’s co-authors worked for GSK or went on to hold key positions within the AACAP.

According to Thacker, one of the co-authors, Stan Kutcher, is now a member of the Canadian Senate and co-founded “Science Up First,” an initiative that purportedly targets scientific “misinformation.”

During a roundtable discussion on the weaponization of science that the MAHA Institute organized last week, Thacker cited Study 329 as an example of fraud in scientific and medical publishing.

Brian Hooker, Ph.D., chief scientific officer for Children’s Health Defense, spoke at the roundtable. He said the discussion, in which “panelists described horror stories of their own scientific research under attack through targeted retractions of papers, denial of research funding, and disciplinary actions,” was “stunning.” He added:

“There is a huge cost in falling out of line with established institutions in science and medicine, whether corporate, university or private organizations. And these highly credentialed panelists paid a huge cost for ‘doing the right thing’ in exposing malfeasance and bad science.”

Research scientist and author James Lyons-Weiler, Ph.D., also participated in the roundtable. He said it “explored how science-like activities have been systematically re-engineered to serve political and corporate interests rather than truth.” He said:

“Study 329 exemplifies the collapse of accountability that follows when industry, regulators and journals form a closed feedback loop of self-validation. What’s marketed as ‘misinformation control’ today is often a continuation of that same pattern — protecting narratives, not people.”

‘One of the best documented case studies of corruption in modern biomedicine’

Study 329, completed in 1998 and funded by GSK, revealed serious safety risks — including suicidal behavior — associated with Paxil. Later studies confirmed those risks.

However, the study showed a few minor positive results that suggested possible efficacy, as it met 15% of the outcomes the researchers had initially said would prove Paxil’s effectiveness.

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Trump-Appointee Paul Ingrassia SLAPS Politico with $150 Million Defamation Lawsuit After ‘Fake News’ Smear Campaign – Attorney Calls Case One of the Most Substantial Threats to Western Civilization – the Far Left’s Weaponization of Journalism

Paul J. Ingrassia, President Trump’s former liaison for the Department of Homeland Security and a Gateway Pundit contributor, has launched a massive $150 million defamation lawsuit against Politico and its reporter Daniel Lippman.

This comes just days after Ingrassia was forced to withdraw his nomination to lead the Office of Special Counsel due to a vicious witch hunt orchestrated by far-left outlets desperate to derail President Trump’s agenda to drain the swamp.

Ingrassia announced the lawsuit Monday night on X:

“ANNOUNCEMENT: I have just filed a $150,000,000 defamation lawsuit against Politico and Daniel Lippman. Very proud of all the hard work done by my absolutely incredible legal team – the Truth will finally come out, and Justice will be served!”

The suit, filed in Virginia and confirmed by his counsel Edward Andrew Paltzik of Taylor Dykema PLLC, targets Politico’s October 9 article by Lippman titled “Key Trump nominee accused of sexual harassment.”

According to the statement from Paltzik, the allegations are “categorically false,” stressing that “Paul has never sexually harassed anyone—full stop.”

Paltzik called the legal action “a landmark, powerful, and necessary” step, adding that the past two weeks had been “extraordinarily difficult for Paul and his family,” yet he has maintained “incredible composure under fire.”

Attorney Paltzik told The Gateway Pundit,

“Paul Ingrassia’s case is about one of the most substantial threats to the future of Western Civilization and to our one-of-a-kind Republic in particular: the Far Left’s weaponization of journalism. We can no longer afford to sit back and just hope against hope that the situation will improve. Only by fighting back in the courts against this weaponization, which is exactly what Mr. Ingrassia is courageously doing, will prevail against this scourge.”

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Election Interference Litigation: Trump’s Case Against the Des Moines Register and Pollster Moves Forward

Back in 2018, I launched a podcast very loosely tied to what I’ve done for a living for many years, and so I called it “Shaping Opinion.” The very first topic I sought to cover was how political polls are used to shape public opinion and influence the vote. 

Needless to say, I didn’t get any takers who were willing to put themselves out there on this issue, and not just in that first year. This has always been one of those topics I’ve been ready to seize on if any new studies or indisputable proof would come up that would give me a chance to dig in. But no matter who I approached, people got awful shy on this one, especially after the presidential race of 2020. 

Of course, this is one of those topics where you can trust your own eyes and ears, and your powers of observation over time. In every presidential election cycle, Democrats are over-sampled and Republicans are not. Pollsters say there are reasons for this, but they never tell the full truth. 

You can count on public polls telling you early and often that the Democrat candidate is dominating. At some point around the conventions, polls will say each candidate saw a “post-convention bounce,” but the Republican candidate’s bump is always temporary and fleeting. The Democrat candidate’s bounce is always framed as the start of the home-stretch run where he or she is a likely winner. 

This is to condition the voters into assuming the Democrat will win. Social psychologists often say that most people like a winner, so for many, once they have a sense from the polls who the likely winner will be, that’s who they decide to vote for. 

Anyone with common sense who has seen this pattern over at least three election cycles can detect for themselves that polls are commonly used to shape opinion, not reflect it. 

So last year, when a well-respected pollster from Iowa named J. Ann Selzer published her final numbers for “The Iowa Poll” three days before election day, many of us were extremely curious. She released what was the final Des Moines Register presidential election poll, which had Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump by three points. 

Fox News called this a “shock poll” that “showed a seven-point shift from Trump to Harris from September, when he had a four-point lead over the vice president in the same poll.” 

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ExxonMobil Sues California Over Climate Regulations

Energy giant ExxonMobil filed a lawsuit on Oct. 24 against California officials—including Lauren Sanchez, chair of the California Air Resources Board, and Attorney General Robert A. Bonta—accusing the state’s climate disclosure regulations of harming the company.

The complaint, filed in the District Court for the Eastern District of California, is about two climate laws approved by Gov. Gavin Newsom in October 2023: SB 253 and SB 261.

SB 253 requires businesses with total annual revenues of more than $1 billion that operate in California to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions, while SB 261 requires businesses with more than $500 million in annual revenues operating in the state to develop a report on their climate-related financial risks.

The bills are scheduled to come into effect in 2026.

“Both bills require ExxonMobil to espouse California’s preferred framing for issues of immense public concern,” the company said in its lawsuit.

The bills require the company to “serve as a mouthpiece for ideas with which it disagrees,” it said, while using frameworks that place “disproportionate blame” of emissions and climate risks on companies like ExxonMobil just for “being large.”

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A D.C. Man Was Arrested for Mocking National Guard Troops with Star Wars’ ‘Imperial March.’ Now He’s Suing.

A Washington, D.C., resident who was handcuffed and detained in September for mocking National Guard soldiers by playing “The Imperial March” from Star Wars on his cellphone is suing the soldiers and police officers for their stormtrooper-like behavior.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of D.C. filed a federal lawsuit today on behalf of Sam O’Hara, arguing that his detention violated his First and Fourth Amendment rights by cutting off his peaceful protest.

“The law might have tolerated government conduct of this sort a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” O’Hara’s lawsuit states. “But in the here and now, the First Amendment bars government officials from shutting down peaceful protests, and the Fourth Amendment (along with the District’s prohibition on false arrest) bars groundless seizures.”

After President Donald Trump deployed National Guard troops to D.C., O’Hara began following National Guard soldiers around playing “The Imperial March” on his cell phone as a form of protest. His lawsuit says O’Hara wanted “to encourage the public to view the deployment as a waste of tax dollars, a needless display of force, and a surreal danger.”

According to his lawsuit, on September 11, O’Hara was tailing four Ohio National Guard soldiers and doing his usual bit. 

“Less than two minutes after the protest began,” the lawsuit says, “Sgt. [Devon] Beck turned around and said, ‘Hey man, if you’re going to keep following us, we can contact Metro PD and they can come handle you if that’s what you want to do. Is that what you want to do?'”

O’Hara allegedly did not respond but continued to follow, at which point the Empire decided to strike back. 

Beck called the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) of Washington, D.C. The lawsuit claims that shortly after several MPD cars arrived. The MPD officers allegedly accused O’Hara of harassing the soldiers, and they detained and handcuffed him.

When O’Hara argued that he was engaged in protest, one of the MPD officers allegedly responded, “That’s not a protest. You better define protest. This isn’t a protest. You are not protesting.”

However, recording and mocking law enforcement are both firmly protected by the First Amendment, as long as one doesn’t interfere with their duties.

Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr. wrote in 1987, in a ruling striking down a Houston ordinance that made it unlawful to oppose or interrupt a police officer, that “the freedom of individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state.”

To put it another way, if you act like an autocratic villain when someone compares you to an autocratic villain, you just might be an autocratic villain.

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Trump Fights Back — Seeks to Proceed with $10 BILLION Lawsuit Against Wall Street Journal Over Epstein ‘Birthday Book’ Hit Piece

President Donald J. Trump is fighting to move forward with his massive $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones, and News Corp, accusing them of launching a “deliberate smear campaign” intended to destroy his reputation.

According to ABC News, Trump’s legal team filed a motion late Monday night urging a Florida federal judge to deny the Journal’s request for dismissal, arguing that the outlet’s July article, which tied Trump to a bawdy letter allegedly penned in Jeffrey Epstein’s so-called “birthday book,” was “malicious, defamatory, and politically motivated.”

In their latest filing, Trump’s attorneys blasted the Journal:

“Defendants did not publish the article on the front page of The Wall Street Journal based on a mere harmless joke between friends. Indeed, such an assertion strains credulity beyond repair. The article, and the surrounding media around it, were all a deliberate smear campaign designed to damage President Trump’s reputation.”

Trump’s lawyers are now pushing for oral arguments to expose a coordinated media effort to smear the president.

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Ninth Circuit Hands President Trump Sweeping Win Over Gavin Newsom — Trump Can Federalize California National Guard to Enforce Federal Immigration Law

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has denied en banc rehearing in Newsom v. Trump, effectively upholding the earlier panel decision that sided with Trump and affirmed his authority to federalize the California National Guard to support federal immigration enforcement.

When California officials refused to cooperate with federal agents, Trump invoked § 12406(3), federalizing and deploying 4,000 members of the California National Guard to Los Angeles to secure ICE facilities and restore order.

California Governor Gavin Newsom and the State of California sued over President Trump’s order, claiming it was unconstitutional and violated state sovereignty.

Newsom wrote at the time:

“We are suing Donald Trump. This is a manufactured crisis. He is creating fear and terror to take over a state militia and violate the U.S. constitution. The illegal order he signed could allow him to send the military into ANY STATE HE WISHES. Every governor — red or blue — should reject this outrageous overreach. There’s a lot of hyperbole out there. This isn’t that. This is an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism that threatens the foundation of our republic. We cannot let it stand.”

US District Judge Charles Breyer (brother of retired SCOTUS Breyer), a Clinton appointee, granted Newsom a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) and said Trump’s decision to federalize the National Guard was illegal.

But the appellate panel ruled that the statute clearly empowers the President to act whenever he is “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.”

In practical terms, this means the Commander-in-Chief may call Guard troops into federal service when local or federal law-enforcement personnel cannot safely or effectively enforce the law.

After Senior Judge Marsha S. Berzon, joined by several liberal colleagues, requested a full-court rehearing, a vote of active Ninth Circuit judges failed to secure a majority, and rehearing en banc was denied on Wednesday. That denial makes the earlier Trump victory final within the circuit and binding precedent across nine Western states.

Judge Marsha Berzon’s 38-page dissent argued that the ruling “invited presidents, now and in the future, to deploy military troops… in response to commonplace, short-lived, domestic disturbances.”

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