Monessen officials submit response to Lea’s lawsuit

By KRISTIE LINDEN

klinden@yourmvi.com

The City of Monessen, its mayor, two councilmen and city administrator have filed their response to a lawsuit accusing them of defamation of character and the alleged targeting of a whistleblower. 

In that response, Mayor Matt Shorraw, city Administrator John Harhai and councilmen Gil Coles and Don Gregor argue their statements about former recreation board chairman and former councilman Ed Lea were true or opinions based on facts.

The defendants also claim any statements they made that Lea has deemed defamatory were made only to Lea, and not to the public.

“Defendants made no statement which would tend to defer third persons from associating with plaintiff or to harm his reputation by lowering him in estimation of the community,” the response states.

The response denies nearly every claim Lea made in his suit outright, but in some cases the denials say that defendants were “without sufficient information to form a belief as to the truth of the (allegations) contained (in the paragraph) of the complaint, and therefore, said (allegations) are denied.”  

Lea claims his work as a councilman from 2016-18 led him to question what he felt were some financial issues and request an audit. He now alleges those questions have led to retaliation.

There were several sparring matches when issues cropped up between Shorraw and the Recreation Board earlier this year, but several times the mayor seemed to indicate he didn’t trust the way finances were handled by Lea, who was chairman at the time.

Lea said the statements, coupled with Harhai’s commentary about Lea’s application for the role of controller last year, were false and defamatory.

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