Lawyers for St. Charles County Councilman Joe Brazil will take a deposition from William "Buddy" Hardin, a St. Charles Republican operative, as Brazil and his lawyer continue gathering evidence in their libel suit against blogger Jeff Roe, the former chief of staff for Sixth District Congressman Sam Graves and the architect of numerous political campaigns.
Hardin admitted to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that it was he who provided Roe with information about a fatality accident in Brazil's past just prior to the 2006 Republican primary in which Brazil was running against Roe's favored candidate Scott Rupp for state senate. Rupp won the election easily.
Hardin told the Post-Dispatch that Brazil's lawsuit was "a joke."
The lawsuit was first revealed by The Turner Report and the O'Fallon Watchdog on March 30, 2007.
Roe's first attack, in the August 1, 2006, Source, read like this:
Then Senator Jon Dolan was phoned many times by Brazil’s constituents as they complained about a “drunk and rowdy crowd” at the New Melle Festival. Imagine the shock when Dolan came to find out that Brazil was the ringleader of the drunken ruffians. But Party Boy Brazil’s escapades don’t stop there. During one of his golf events, Brazil allowed women in attendance to discard their clothing and go topless.
Is this what Missouri needs in one of its Senators? The Source thinks not. Perhaps Joe Brazil should examine his own past before he attempts to disguise himself as a Republican. Brazil has no business even thinking about running a campaign against incumbent Scott Rupp. Rupp is what Missouri needs in the State Senate. He is a responsible, strong, family man who Brazil could learn a lot from.
The second attack, three days later, was the one which caused Brazil to tell First Capital News "He (Roe) told lies, misrepresented facts and brought up an incident that happened when I was 18 years old and then lied about it,"
In his Aug. 4 post, Roe wrote:
According to www.darwinawards.com, in 1982, Brazil was attempting to pull off a senior class prank at McCluer North High School in Florissant, Missouri. Brazil plan was to deposit thousands of pounds of sand into the school’s faculty parking lot. Brazil even owned a dump truck that could be used to aid in the prank.
After quite a few beers, Brazil and his buddies loaded up the dump truck with sand and drove to the school. One of Brazil’s friends, Norval Pierce sat on top of the bed of the truck while Brazil dumped the sand. Brazil drove slowly while dumping attempting to adequately spread the sand in the parking lot. As Brazil was driving the truck jumped forward, throwing Pierce through the frame of the truck. Not realizing what had happened, Brazil continued to drive while drunk and dumping sand. Brazil proceeded to crush Pierce under the truck.
So now we have another instance of Brazil’s irresponsibility and not owning up to his mistakes. What else do we need to know Joe?
Nowhere did Roe mention that the official police reports called it an accident and did not lay any of the blame on Brazil.
The posts remained on The Source until January 2008, when The Turner Report noted:
All of Roe's archives, with the exception of the past three months, have been removed from the website. Fired Up Missouri notes that both Roe's blog, and the GOP blog, The Pulse, written by John Hancock, either changed (in the case of the Pulse) or removed (in the case of The Source) potentially libelous materials concerning Scott Eckersley, Gov. Matt Blunt's attorney, who was fired during the recent controversy over destruction of e-mail messages.
But the attacks on Roe are among the wealth of other material that no longer is accessible to the public, at least at this time.
No date has been set for a trial.
Neither Brazil nor his attorney requested that Roe take the story off his site until some time after the election. Why wait if it was wrong? All information for the story was a direct quote from a publically available site that I simply googled. That post and Brazil's identity were verified by the author of the Darwin Awards Interestingly, a Brazil associate did contact the Darwin Awards before the election, resulting in the story being deleted. No reference to official reports were noted because the Florissant PD refused to release the police report, a public record that they later provided to the Journal. This tragic story was never used in any campaign piece. The "Source" posting was barely seen by anyone, this story keeps getting printed in local papers due to Brazil's pursuit of the suit. This has created 100 times the awareness of these events. Shouldn't he sue himself? Pols are public figures who are supposed to have thick skins, not eggshells.
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