Consultants Must Apologize for Dirty Pictures Robocall

Politics means never having to say you’re sorry, right?

Not this time.

Two people behind a 2012 robocall that accused a Michigan Democratic statehouse candidate of taking “dirty pictures in his basement” and “using the Internet to lure young girls into nude modeling sessions” have agreed to publicly apologize, the MLive Media Group reports.

The agreement settles a slander lawsuit filed by former Macomb County Commissioner Phil DiMaria, who lost his 2012 legislative bid, that named political consultant Joe DiSano and narrator Dan Sloan as defendants.

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The settlement has far-reaching implications for politicians who find themselves targeted in dirty campaign tactics, but can’t always reach the higher “actual malice” threshold required of public figures in libel and slander suits, DiMaria’s lawyer said.

“What is happening today is that politicians are being told that they have this huge veil of protection, that they can just about say and write anything they want about their opponents and they can’t get sued for it,” attorney Albert Addis said. “There are a lot of political professionals advising candidates of this.”

It’s still unclear who hired the two to make the calls, which The Macomb Daily said in 2012 were sparked by the candidate’s decade-long association with a website that featured photos of nude women. DiMaria, a part-time photographer, acknowledged the erotic material contained his trademark, but blamed his partners in the photography business.

DiMaria’s attorney said his client was only interested in getting his name and reputation back.

“He wasn’t chasing huge dollars, although there were some dollars involved,” Addis said.

According to the terms of the settlement, DiMaria may run the signed apologies as full-page ads in two newspapers of his choosing. Additionally, defendant Disano, through his Main Street Strategies consulting business in Lansing, must distribute robocalls to the same areas of Eastpointe and St. Clair Shores that received the original 5,000. DiMaria will write the script for the calls.

An attorney for the two defendants, who were unsuccessful in getting the case tossed out of court on First Amendment rights, agreed to settle “primarily for economic reasons.” They believe the call was constitutionally protected, but the prospect arguing the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court was cost-prohibitive, attorney Anthony DeLuca said.