LAG, Gag, Makes me Gag
The potential lawsuit being floated by local Attorney Joseph Sklarosky, counselor for LAG Towing owner Leo Glodzik III, might be better identified as a SLAPP rather than a lawsuit to curb the “false and malicious” statements that Leo Glodsik has accused Councilman Tony George of reporting to local media and at Wilkes-Barre City Council meetings.
According to Wikipedia, a SLAPP, or, “Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation” is
a lawsuit intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition. The typical SLAPP plaintiff does not normally expect to win the lawsuit. The plaintiff’s goals are accomplished if the defendant succumbs to fear, intimidation, mounting legal costs or simple exhaustion and abandons the criticism. A SLAPP may also intimidate others from participating in the debate. A SLAPP is often preceded by a legal threat.
The Gazette, perhaps surprisingly, would like to see the lawsuit actually filed so perhaps the Wilkes-Barre Police Department and the Leighton administration will be forced to provide the disclosure by means of legal “discovery” needed to finally get to the bottom of this LAG debacle that has stymied local activists from getting all of the City’s towing contract records for over a year and a half now.
Does LAG have receipts, or not? According to court records, Leo Glodzik’s testimony in July of 2012 before Luzerne County Judge Lesa Gelb was that he did not see the need to keep records for more than a month. What? Very convenient, though, for Mr. Glodzik to appear at a September City Council meeting last year with records dated 2008 pleading his case that a story run by the Gazette was nothing more than local media “picking on him.”
You can’t have it both ways. You either possess records or you don’t, and the Gazette continues to question the Luzerne County District Attorney’s Office concerning the status of a private criminal complaint filed by Forty Fort resident Mark Robbins charging Glodzik with perjury.
